v0.22.0 — The Threshold Release

Released: October 13, 2026 Theme: Easier to get started, steadier to update

This is the largest Hermes release so far. It also rolls up and fully documents the v0.21.1 to v0.21.7 patch releases. Since v0.21.0 it adds about 24,200 commits and about 6,080 merged PRs.

Highlights

• Guided first launch (desktop): a fresh install starts a short setup chat. One card at a time it asks your name, an accent color, a layout, which apps and plugins to connect, then suggests a few first tasks. It runs on a free trial model provided by Nous, so it needs no API key.
• Connectors: the agent can work inside hosted apps such as Linear and Notion. Name the app, sign in once in your browser, and the tools work in the same turn. You can connect several accounts of one app (for example work and personal). The desktop Connectors page lists hosted apps and MCP servers together.
• Local models in one click: Hermes installs llama.cpp for you, rates each model against your GPU and memory, and picks the best build that fits. Nothing leaves your computer.
• Stable release channels: version numbers now look like 0.22.0. Every release passes install and upgrade tests on each operating system before it ships, and source installs follow releases by default. Moving to an older release is labelled a rollback and always asks first.
• Signed desktop packages: Windows now uses MSIX (also on the Microsoft Store), and macOS gets a notarized Apple Silicon build. The new package manager, hermes pm, builds a new environment and switches only after it passes its check, so a failed or interrupted update never leaves you half-applied.
• Plugin Catalog: the catalog launched and grew to 600 plugins, each pinned to a reviewed version and installable from the desktop app or the CLI. Memory providers (Honcho, Supermemory, Mem0 and others), Home Assistant, Spotify and Langfuse moved to plugins; existing users are migrated on update with their data intact.
• New models: Claude Fable 5.1, Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5, GPT-6 Astra / Sol / Luna and GPT-6.1 Sol, and Gemini 4 Argon. When a provider has a brief outage (503, 529, timeouts), Hermes waits for it to recover instead of ending the turn.
• Sign in to websites with a password manager: the browser agent can log in with 1Password, Bitwarden or Hermes’s own encrypted vault, and the model never sees the password. One-time codes are filled without entering the chat, and card and address fills at checkout need your confirmation.
• Bot Screen: a bot running on Linux can have its own desktop that the desktop app streams live. When it hits a login, a 2FA prompt or a CAPTCHA, you take over, finish the step, and hand control back.
• One gateway for every profile: one machine runs a single messaging gateway and a single backend for all profiles. Each profile still keeps its own credentials, allowlists, cron jobs and chat history, and hermes update migrates older setups automatically.
• Live subagents: running subagents show their task, elapsed time and live transcript, and you can steer or stop them directly.
• Messaging platforms: Telegram can require an @mention before a bot replies, which stops bots from answering each other in a loop; Discord setup checks the bot token; WhatsApp drops its 5-second batching delay.
• Leaner: the codebase shrank from about 1.06M to about 698K lines (34% less) with no behavior change. About 19 rarely used tools now load only when needed, so the prompt sent to the model on every call is shorter.

Before you upgrade

• Chats no longer reset on a timer: the idle and daily reset settings are retired; only /new or /reset starts a fresh chat.
• Old chats are deleted automatically: by default, ended chats with no activity for 90 days are deleted. Pinned and open chats are never touched. To keep everything, set sessions.auto_prune to false.
• Email channel: an authserv_id setting is now required; mail is not received until it is set.
• Python 3.14 is the runtime; the Windows desktop app needs Windows 11 22H2 or newer.

Official link

Hermes Agent v0.22.0 release notes