MilkyWay008/Hermes-OTG

🚀 Hermes OTG — Your Pocket Agent
System-Rescue Companion

Full-featured Hermes Agent on a USB stick. Zero install. Zero host pollution. Instant run.
Run it from any drive, any folder, any Windows 10/11 PC — as full Desktop app, TUI, or just Gateway.
The only portable Hermes that can run side-by-side with your installed one.

Agent for agents · IT rescue kit · portable coding workspace

| 📦 | v1.0.1 [H-v0.19.0] (Win10/11) — no install, just unzip & run. |

📑 Table of Contents

• Why Hermes OTG?
• ✨ Key Features
• 🎬 See It In Action
• 🏆 Not the first portable Hermes — but the first to do ALL of it
• ⚡ Quick Start
• 🖥️ Three Ways to Run
• 🛠️ Built for Serious Work: Coding
• 🆘 Built for Serious Work: IT Rescue
• ⚙️ How It Works — The Portability Engine
• 📁 Folder Structure
• 🔑 API Keys & Configuration
• 📦 System Requirements & Footprint
• 🔄 Updating
• 🔒 Security Notes
• ❓ FAQ
• 🔍 Search Keywords
• 📝 Credits & License

💡 Why Hermes OTG?

"Every machine deserves a smart layer."

There are plenty of "portable Hermes" projects — most are bootstrap launchers that download the agent at first run, or stripped shells that lose the toolset. Hermes OTG is different:

• 🧳 A complete, offline-deployable Hermes — full headless browser, computer use, MCP, skills, memory, everything — in one folder you can carry on a USB stick.
• 🔄 Hot-swappable — move it to any folder, any drive (USB, HDD, E:, I:, Z: — doesn't matter). It just works. Zero install.
• 🖥️ Your choice of interface — full-feature OTG Hermes Desktop, the classic TUI, or a lean Gateway/API server only.
• 🆘 Your IT rescue agentic kit — when your host-installed Hermes breaks (failed update, app conflict), OTG Hermes Desktop runs side-by-side with it to diagnose, troubleshoot, and fix.
• 🧠 Equipped with special skills & harness for serious tasks — coding, IT system repair, network ops — with minimal drift.

✨ Key Features

🧳 Truly Portable — By Design, Not By Launcher Hacks

• HERMES_HOME resolves relative to the executable — not ~/.hermes. This is the core design decision that makes it genuinely relocatable.
• 17 hardcoded-path source files + 4 import-time caching bugs patched at the source level — not patched at launch time. Move it, it just works.
• All configs, MCP server paths, terminal CWD, and scripts use relative paths (the "Portability Mandate") — no absolute-path time bombs.
• Zero install on the host — no Python, no Node, no Docker, no admin rights, no registry writes.

🖥️ Full Desktop App From a USB Stick

• Launch the complete Electron desktop app directly from the portable folder.
• The bundled hermes.exe runs in serve mode (serve --host 127.0.0.1 --port 7642 --skip-build) so the desktop renderer gets its full JSON-RPC/WebSocket backend.

🔀 Side-by-Side With Your Installed Hermes — The Killer Feature

• Different desktop app identity (com.nousresearch.hermes-otg appId + HERMES_OTG env var → separate Windows named mutex) — both desktops run simultaneously.
• Separate port: 7642 (installed Hermes uses 8642) — no binding conflicts.
• Separate data dir — OTG uses its own state.db, memories/, skills/, SOUL.md. Your host install is never touched.
• Gateway OFF by default — starts only when you explicitly run it.

🛠️ Bundled for Serious Agentic Coding

• FastMCP — build/run MCP servers out of the box.
• FastAPI — spin up APIs on the go.
• CLI-Anything — agent-native CLI tooling.
• PortableGit + bundled real CPython 3.12 — the terminal tool has a working bash shell and Python, fully self-contained.
• All standard Hermes skills pre-shipped — the full library, ready.

🆘 Bundled for IT System Rescue & Network Ops

• windows-mcp pre-installed with 31 Sysinternals rescue tools (PsExec, handle, procdump, accesschk, …).
• OTG-native MCP install skill (otg-mcp) — add more MCP servers the portable way, using the bundled Python (never the host's).
• memory-index skill — memory housekeeping for long sessions.

🧠 Special Skills & Harness

• Purpose-built skills and specially prepared harness so the agent excels at serious tasks with minimal drift — coding, IT repair, and network operations that would stall a generic portable agent.

🎬 See It In Action

🔀 Side-by-Side with your installed Hermes — survives drive-letter & folder change:

🏆 Not the first portable Hermes — but the first to do ALL of it

We researched the ecosystem before building. There are at least 6 other public portable Hermes projects. None of them can do everything Hermes OTG does:

🏆 "First portable Hermes" was already taken. "First portable Hermes that does ALL of it" — that's ours.

⚡ Quick Start

1. Get the release

📦 Download the latest Hermes OTG release (.rar) here. Extract anywhere — a USB stick, external drive, or a plain folder. Do not need to run an installer.

2. Launch

Double-click the launcher for the mode you want:

The first launch may take a few seconds to prepare (paths re-point to the current drive automatically). After that it's instant.

3. Add your API keys

Edit data\.env and data\config.yaml (in the portable folder) to add your own keys. The release ships with a free NVIDIA key so it works out of the box for testing.

4. Go

Start chatting. Carry it to another machine — plug in, launch, continue. Your agent's memory, sessions, skills, and state travel with the folder.

🖥️ Three Ways to Run

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│              Hermes OTG (any drive, any folder)                │
│                                                                │
│   hermes-desktop.cmd      hermes.cmd        hermes-gateway-    │
│        │                     │               start.cmd         │
│        ▼                     ▼                    ▼            │
│   ┌─────────────┐      ┌──────────┐      ┌──────────────┐      │
│   │ FULL DESKTOP│      │   TUI    │      │  API SERVER  │      │
│   │ (Electron)  │      │ (text UI)│      │   port 7642  │      │
│   └─────────────┘      └──────────┘      └──────────────┘      │
│         └────────────────────┬────────────────────┘            │
│                              ▼                                 │
│                 hermes.exe (PyInstaller,                       │
│                 self-contained, HERMES_HOME → data/)           │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

• Desktop — full GUI, recommended for everyone.
• TUI — terminal power users.
• Gateway — API server only, for programmatic access and remote control (an admin agent can talk to this OTG agent agent-to-agent).

🆘 Built for Serious Work: IT system Rescue

Plug it in. Launch it. You have an IT admin agent ready to work. From the moment OTG Hermes starts, you have eyes and hands on the machine — windows-mcp + 31 Sysinternals tools, PowerShell, file system, registry, browser, and a harness built for serious system work. No setup, no config, no waiting: just ask. It's perfect to go with Hiren's BootCD, MediCat USB, UBCD, Windows-to-Go (WTG), etc.

🆘 Use Case 1 — Rescue a broken installed Hermes (the flagship)

Your host-installed Hermes desktop fails to run — failed update? App conflict? Broken config?
Plug in OTG Hermes. Launch OTG Hermes Desktop — it can even run side-by-side with the broken install (different mutex, different port, isolated data).
The OTG agent inspects the host install — config, state.db, skills, gateway processes — using the bundled windows-mcp + 31 Sysinternals tools (PsExec, handle, procdump, accesschk, …), diagnoses the failure, and fixes it. Your host agent is rescued.

💽 Use Case 2 — Diagnose system & app failures on any machine

"The disk on this windows server is failing — check SMART status, find what's filling it, and tell me what to replace."

"This app can't connect to the network — trace why."

OTG Hermes reads event logs, checks disk health, runs network diagnostics (Test-NetConnection, DNS, services), inspects app configs and processes — and walks you to the root cause with diagnostic report & proposed fix ready (even fix it for you if you approve Hermes to do so). It's like having a sysadmin's toolkit that also thinks.

🏛️ Use Case 3 — Infrastructure setup (domain / Active Directory / LDAP)

"Set up the domain on this machine and join it to Active Directory."

"Connect this box to our LDAP directory."

OTG Hermes guides you through domain configuration, AD/LDAP connectivity, DNS, and authentication — step by step, verifying each stage with the bundled tools, so you're not guessing in front of a server console. With windows-mcp computer_use capability, with your approval, OTG Hermes can even do all the above FOR you.

That's the difference between a "portable toy" and a portable smart layer for every machine.

📁 See it in action — real rescues from the sample folder:

🖥️ VMware VM failure & recovery — a crashed VM brought back from diagnose to fix, in minutes instead of hours.

🌐 WSL failure & recovery after Windows Update — WSL dead after an update, remotely diagnosed and restored without touching the host's broken install.

These are real-life system rescues that normally take hours or days of troubleshooting — completed (diagnose → fix) in 5–20 minutes by OTG Hermes agent.

🛠️ Built for Serious Work: Coding

Out of the box, with all followings bundled, Hermes OTG is a portable agentic coding workstation:

• FastMCP — create and run MCP servers anywhere, no host install.
• FastAPI — stand up local APIs for testing or tooling.
• CLI-Anything — let the agent directly drive any CLI, and almost any apps in windows.
• Bundled Python 3.12 + PortableGit — the terminal tool runs real bash and Python, all inside the folder.
• Full browser + computer-use toolset — the agent can browse, automate, and operate like the full Hermes experience.

💡 "Serious agentic coding tasks on the go — without touching the host machine's Python, Node, or environment."

⚙️ How It Works — The Portability Engine

Upstream Hermes source (immutable)
        │
        ▼
Patched for OTG portability:
  • 17 hardcoded ~/.hermes path files → relative HERMES_HOME
  • 4 import-time path-caching bugs → dynamic resolution
  • Desktop app identity → com.nousresearch.hermes-otg (own mutex)
  • Default API port → 7642 (vs installed 8642; avoid clash)
  • Gateway → OFF by default (HERMES_OTG env var gates it)
        │
        ▼
PyInstaller --onedir build
        │
        ▼
Hermes OTG portable folder (hermes*.cmd + data/ + desktop-app/ + Hermes-OTG/ + mcp_servers/ + dependencies/)

Why this matters: other portable builds fix paths at launch time (rewrite pyvenv.cfg, regenerate trampolines). Our Hermes OTG fixes them in the source — so the binary is intrinsically portable. No setup phase, no repair step, no first-run download. Instant, every time, from anywhere.

📁 Basic Folder Structure

Hermes-OTG/
├── hermes-desktop.cmd        # Launch full desktop app (recommended)
├── hermes.cmd                # Launch TUI
├── hermes-gateway-start.cmd  # Launch API server only (port 7642)
├── data/                     # ⚠️ [BACKUP THIS] (excluding folder "node")
│   ├── SOUL.md               #   System prompt / persona
│   ├── state.db              #   Sessions & state
│   ├── config.yaml           #   Hermes config
│   ├── .env                  #   API keys
│   ├── memories/             #   User profile, saved facts
│   ├── skills/               #   User-installed skills (+ custom/)
│   └── logs/
├── mcp_servers/              # MCP servers (installed per-machine, portable way)
│   └── windows-mcp/          #   Pre-installed, 28 Sysinternals rescue tools
├── Hermes-OTG                # PyInstaller-built, self-contained
├── desktop-app				  # Hermes desktop app OTG patched, self-contained
├── dependencies/             # Bundled Python 3.12 + FastMCP/FastAPI/CLI-Anything
├── git/                      # Bundled PortableGit
└── workspace/                # Default working folder

⚠️ Back up data/ — it holds your agent's identity: personality, memory, sessions, skills.

🔑 API Keys & Configuration

Edit these in the portable folder (never the host's):

# data/.env
# At minimum, set one provider's API key
NVIDIA_API_KEY=nvapi-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx      # ships pre-configured for testing
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-v1-xxxxxxxxxxxx    # or your provider of choice
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY=sk-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

• Models / tools / MCP servers → data\config.yaml
• Persona & Harness → edit data\SOUL.md (loaded fresh every message)
• Config templates → data\config.yaml.template-* and data\.env.template-* are clean starting points
• MCP servers → add at mcp_servers\<name>\ the OTG-native way (ask the agent, or load the otg-mcp skill). After adding to config.yaml, restart the app.

💡 If you change your API key provider, also update the vision model in config.yaml (auxiliary.vision) so the agent can "see".

📦 System Requirements & Footprint

🔄 Updating

Updates are OFF by design — this build is specially forked and patched for portability, so the in-app updater is disabled (each Hermes update would require the whole OTG bundle to be rebuilt).

• To get the latest Hermes OTG, watch for a new release by Ringo / MilkyWay008, published shortly after major Hermes updates (e.g. v0.19 → v0.20 → v0.21).
• OTG changes are tracked as git commits on an internal otg-build branch, replayed onto new upstream releases with git rebase — so updates stay reproducible.

🔒 Security Notes

[!WARNING] Your portable folder contains your identity. data/ holds your API keys (.env), persona & harness (SOUL.md), and all session data (state.db, memories/). Treat it like a wallet: don't leave the USB stick lying around, and back it up.

• Zero host pollution — no registry writes, no ~/.hermes, no host app data touched. Remove the folder and nothing remains.
• The bundled free NVIDIA key is for out-of-the-box testing only (~40 requests/min) — not for production. Use your own keys for real work.

❓ FAQ

🗺️ Future Dev Plan

Where Hermes OTG goes next:

(a) 🌍 Linux & macOS are next. The next major target is bringing OTG Hermes to Linux and macOS — the same zero-install, hot-swappable, side-by-side portable experience on every platform.

(b) 🤖 Bundled Smart MCP Proxy + Computer-Use MCP for agentic IT Management. The next release will include a compiled version of the Smart MCP Proxy with computer-use MCP — turning every machine node into an MCP node with eyes and hands, so one agent can manage an entire fleet of machines remotely. Remote brains. Local hands.

🌐 Curious about the full vision? See Smart MCP Proxy — True Potential: cascading proxies, enterprise IT hierarchies, agent-as-IT-admin, and the operating system for agentic IT operations.

🔍 Search Keywords

Hermes OTG · OTG Hermes · OTG · portable hermes · hermes agent portable · hermes usb · USB AI agent · portable AI agent · no install AI agent · zero install · green package / 绿色版 · USB bundle / U盘版 · portable bundle / 便携版 · Windows portable · Windows To Go · Windows-to-Go · WTG · hermes desktop portable · side-by-side hermes · IT rescue USB · Sysinternals AI agent · MCP portable · offline AI agent · Hiren's BootCD · Hiren · BootCD · MediCat USB · MediCat · Ultimate Boot CD · UBCD · FalconFour’s Ultimate Boot CD · Hermes rescue · system rescue

📝 Credits & License

• Built by Ringo / MilkyWay008, forked from NousResearch/hermes-agent.
• Based on Hermes Agent v0.19.0 (main HEAD), patched for full portability.
• License: MIT

Hermes OTG — every machine deserves a smart layer.
_{Portable. Zero-install. Side-by-side. Offline. Full-suite. 🧳}