Hermes Desktop — Desktop Companion App for the Hermes AI Agent

Introduction

Hermes Desktop is a cross-platform desktop application that serves as the graphical companion for the Hermes AI agent. It provides a native chat interface, session history, and configuration management, letting users interact with Hermes through a polished GUI rather than the terminal. The app is built with Electron and TypeScript.

What Hermes Desktop Does

• Provides a native desktop chat interface for conversing with the Hermes AI agent
• Manages multiple conversation sessions with full history and search
• Displays rich content including code blocks, markdown, and media inline in chat
• Supports local-first operation with conversation data stored on your machine
• Integrates with multiple LLM providers through the Hermes agent backend

Architecture Overview

Hermes Desktop is an Electron application with a TypeScript and React frontend. It communicates with the Hermes agent runtime, which handles LLM inference, tool execution, and context management. The desktop app manages the UI layer: rendering chat messages, handling file attachments, and persisting session state to local storage. The architecture separates the agent logic from the presentation, allowing the same Hermes backend to serve both terminal and desktop interfaces.

Self-Hosting & Configuration

• Clone the repository and install dependencies with npm install
• Run in development mode with npm run dev or build for production with npm run build
• Configure your LLM API keys in the application settings panel
• Conversation history is stored locally in the app data directory
• Builds are available for macOS, Windows, and Linux

Key Features

• Clean native desktop interface with dark and light theme support
• Multi-session management with conversation history and full-text search
• Rich message rendering with syntax-highlighted code blocks and markdown
• Cross-platform builds for macOS, Windows, and Linux
• Open-source under an active development community

Comparison with Similar Tools

• Open WebUI — web-based LLM chat interface; Hermes Desktop is a native desktop app
• Jan — offline AI desktop app; Hermes Desktop is specifically designed for the Hermes agent ecosystem
• LobeChat — multi-model web chat UI; Hermes Desktop focuses on the Hermes agent with desktop-native features
• LibreChat — self-hosted web platform; Hermes Desktop provides a desktop-native experience
• ChatGPT Desktop — proprietary; Hermes Desktop is open-source and agent-agnostic

FAQ

Q: Do I need the Hermes agent installed separately? A: The desktop app includes the Hermes agent runtime, so it works out of the box after configuring your API key.

Q: Which LLM providers are supported? A: Hermes Desktop supports multiple providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, and OpenAI-compatible APIs.

Q: Where is my conversation data stored? A: All data is stored locally on your machine in the app data directory. Nothing is sent to external servers beyond LLM API calls.

Q: Can I use Hermes Desktop offline? A: The app itself runs offline, but LLM inference requires an active internet connection to reach the API provider.

Sources

• https://github.com/fathah/hermes-desktop