Hermes UI

A sleek, glassmorphic web interface for Hermes Agent — your self-hosted AI assistant.

Built as a single-file HTML application with React 18, Hermes UI provides a full-featured chat interface, real-time log streaming, file browsing, memory inspection, and more — all through a lightweight Python proxy server.

Artifact Panel

Midnight (default)

Twilight

Dawn

Features

Chat Interface

• SSE streaming with real-time token display
• Tool call visualization with expandable results
• Message editing and re-sending
• Image paste/drop with Gemini vision analysis
• Pause, interject, and stop controls mid-stream
• Multiple personality modes (default, technical, creative, pirate, kawaii, and more)
• PDF and HTML chat export
• Markdown rendering with syntax-highlighted code blocks

Dashboard

• Live auto-refreshing stats (sessions, messages, tools, tokens)
• System info panel (model, provider, uptime)
• Hermes configuration overview

Artifact Panel

• 5th tab in the live terminal panel (alongside Gateway, Errors, Web UI, All)
• Auto-detects HTML, SVG, and code blocks in Hermes responses and renders them live
• Auto-detects file paths Hermes saves to disk (e.g. ~/Desktop/page.html) and loads them automatically — no need to copy-paste code
• Panel dynamically widens from 320px to 600px when Artifacts tab is active
• Sandboxed iframe rendering for HTML/SVG with full animation and JavaScript support
• Syntax-highlighted code blocks for Python, JS, CSS, and other languages
• Per-artifact Copy and close (✕) buttons
• Manual "Load File" button to open any local HTML/SVG/code file directly in the panel
• Scroll position preserved when switching between tabs

Terminal

• Tabbed interface: Gateway, Errors, Web UI, All — real-time log streaming via SSE
• Live connection indicator with line count

File Browser

• Browse ~/.hermes directory tree
• View and edit config files, logs, and memory files in-place
• Image preview support

Memory Inspector

• View and edit Hermes internal memory (MEMORY.md, USER.md)
• Live memory usage stats

Skills Browser

• Search and browse all installed Hermes skills
• Sort by newest, oldest, or name — see what Hermes has been creating
• Relative timestamps on each skill (e.g. "2h ago", "3d ago")
• View skill descriptions, tags, and trigger phrases

Jobs Monitor

• Track active and recent Hermes sessions
• Message, tool call, and token counts per session
• Auto-refresh every 10 seconds

MCP Tool Browser

• Browse all connected MCP servers and their tools
• View tool descriptions and status

UI/UX

• Glassmorphism design with ambient animated glow
• Collapsible sidebar and right panel
• System status bar (connection, model, memory count, sessions)
• Inter + JetBrains Mono typography
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Theme switcher (Midnight, Twilight, Dawn)
• Responsive layout for tablets and mobile phones
• Bottom navigation bar on small screens with quick access to key views
• Touch-optimized targets and safe-area inset support for notched devices

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8+
• A running Hermes Agent instance on localhost:8642
• (Optional) Claude Code CLI for the Claude terminal tab

Install & Run

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/pyrate-llama/hermes-ui.git
cd hermes-ui

# Start the proxy server
python3 serve_lite.py

# Or specify a custom port
python3 serve_lite.py --port 8080

Note: serve.py still exists as a backwards-compatibility shim that prints a deprecation notice and execs serve_lite.py. Existing systemd units and launchers that reference serve.py will keep working, but new setups should invoke serve_lite.py directly.

Open http://localhost:3333/hermes-ui.html in your browser.

That's it — no npm install, no build step, no dependencies beyond Python's standard library.

Configuration

The proxy server connects to Hermes at http://127.0.0.1:8642 by default. To change this, edit the HERMES variable at the top of serve_lite.py.

For image analysis (paste/drop images in chat), add your Gemini API key in the Settings modal within the UI.

Using OpenRouter or Custom Inference Endpoints

Hermes supports any OpenAI-compatible API endpoint, which means you can use OpenRouter to access Claude, GPT-4, Llama, Mistral, and dozens of other models through a single API key.

In your ~/.hermes/config.yaml, set your inference endpoint and API key:

inference:
  base_url: https://openrouter.ai/api/v1
  api_key: sk-or-v1-your-openrouter-key
  model: anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-20250514

This also works with other compatible providers like LiteLLM (self-hosted proxy), Ollama (http://localhost:11434/v1), or any endpoint that speaks the OpenAI chat completions format.

Remote Access (Tailscale)

Access Hermes UI from your phone, tablet, or any device using Tailscale — a zero-config mesh VPN built on WireGuard. No ports exposed to the internet, no DNS to configure, all traffic encrypted end-to-end.

1. Install Tailscale on your server (the machine running Hermes):

   brew install tailscale    # macOS
   # or: curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh   # Linux
   tailscale up
   

2. Install Tailscale on your phone/other devices — download the app (iOS/Android) and sign in with the same account.

3. Connect — find your server's Tailscale IP (tailscale ip) and open:

   http://100.x.x.x:3333/hermes-ui.html
   

4. Optional: HTTPS via Tailscale Serve — get a real certificate and clean URL:

   tailscale serve --bg 3333
   # Accessible at https://your-machine.tail1234.ts.net
   

A built-in setup guide is also available in the app under Settings > Remote Access.

Architecture

┌─────────────┐    ┌────────────────┐    ┌──────────────────┐
│  Browser     │───▶│  serve_lite.py │───▶│  Hermes Agent    │
│  (React 18)  │    │  port 3333     │    │  port 8642       │
│              │◀───│  proxy +       │◀───│  (WebAPI)        │
│  Single HTML │    │  log stream    │    │                  │
└─────────────┘    └────────────────┘    └──────────────────┘

• hermes-ui.html — The entire frontend in a single file: React components, CSS, and markup. Uses Babel standalone for JSX compilation in the browser.
• serve_lite.py — A lightweight Python proxy (stdlib only, no pip dependencies) that serves static files, proxies the /api/chat/* two-step SSE flow to the Hermes agent, streams logs via SSE, provides shell/Claude CLI execution, and enables file browsing/editing within ~/.hermes. This is the canonical server.
• serve.py — Backwards-compatibility shim. Prints a deprecation notice and execs serve_lite.py. Kept so existing systemd units and launchers don't break.

CDN Dependencies

All loaded from cdnjs.cloudflare.com at runtime:

Keyboard Shortcuts

Themes

Hermes UI ships with three built-in themes, accessible via the theme switcher in the header:

• Midnight (default) — Deep indigo/purple glassmorphism with ambient purple and green glow
• Twilight — Warm amber/gold tones with copper accents
• Dawn — Soft light theme with blue-gray tones for daytime use

Troubleshooting

Hermes stops responding / hangs after a few messages

If Hermes responds once or twice then goes silent, check your ~/.hermes/config.yaml for this bug in the context compression config:

compression:
  summary_base_url: null   # ← this causes a 404 and hangs the agent

Fix it by setting summary_base_url to match your inference provider's base URL. For MiniMax:

compression:
  summary_base_url: https://api.minimax.io/anthropic

Then restart Hermes: hermes restart

Chat hangs, times out silently, or returns 404 on /api/chat/start

Two common causes:

1. You're running the old serve.py directly from a stale checkout or a systemd unit. The current client (hermes-ui.html) talks to the two-step /api/chat/* SSE API, which only serve_lite.py implements. If your launcher calls python3 serve.py, pull the repo — the new serve.py is a shim that forwards to serve_lite.py and will keep working. If you're on an older checkout, update your unit to call serve_lite.py directly:

   ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 /path/to/hermes-ui/serve_lite.py
   

2. The Hermes agent itself (port 8642) isn't reachable. serve_lite.py on 3333 is only a proxy — it needs the agent running on 8642. Check curl http://127.0.0.1:8642/health.

If you still see silent hangs, open the browser console — the client now surfaces SSE errors as visible chat messages rather than stalling.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Credits

Built by Pyrate Llama with help from Claude (Anthropic).

Powered by Hermes Agent.