How to install Hermes Agent on Mac

Short answer

Yes, Macs with Apple Silicon (M1 and later) are officially supported. The official docs list macOS on Apple Silicon as Tier 1, which means the team aims never to break installs and updates there.

Intel Macs are not officially supported. The Installation page says the macOS installer is Apple Silicon only, and the desktop bootstrap installer reports that it is not supported on an Intel Mac.

There are two ways to install:

• Desktop app: the route the Quickstart recommends. It bundles the agent, Python, dependencies and the interfaces.
• Command line installer: one command in Terminal. Choose this if you only want the terminal or plan to run Hermes as a background service.

What you need

• A Mac with Apple Silicon.
• For the command line installer: Git, curl, tar and SHA-256 utilities.
• No Python or Node.js. The installer provides Python 3.14, Node.js, npm, ripgrep and FFmpeg.
• Do not use Homebrew (brew install hermes-agent) or pip. The Platform Support page lists both as unsupported install methods.

Install

Desktop app: download it from hermes-agent.nousresearch.com, open the DMG, then copy Hermes.app to Applications.

Command line: open Terminal and run the official one-liner.

Terminal

curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash

The installer clones the source, sets up its own Python 3.14 and tools, and by default also adds a pinned Chromium for the browser tool. New installs follow the stable channel, which is the latest published release.

Started with the command line and want the app too? Run hermes desktop.

First run and setup

Reload your shell so it can find the hermes command, then start chatting.

Terminal

source ~/.zshrc
hermes

Terminal

hermes model          # Choose your LLM provider and model
hermes tools          # Configure which tools are enabled
hermes gateway setup  # Set up messaging platforms
hermes config set     # Set individual config values
hermes config get     # Inspect individual config values
hermes setup          # Or run the full setup wizard to configure everything at once

The setup wizard offers three modes on a fresh install. Quick Setup uses a Nous Portal login, so there are no API keys to manage. Full Setup lets you bring your own keys. Blank Slate turns on only your provider and model, plus the File Operations and Terminal toolsets.

If you only want to pick a provider and model, run hermes model instead of the full wizard. The official docs say Hermes needs a model with at least 64,000 tokens of context. Smaller models are rejected at startup.

Using the Nous Portal? hermes setup --portal logs you in, sets Nous as your provider and turns on the Tool Gateway in one step. hermes doctor checks the install.

Want a local model instead of an API? The docs' Run Local LLMs on Mac guide targets Apple Silicon and says its 9B starter model fits comfortably in 8 GB or more of unified memory.

Where your settings live and how to update

• Secrets such as API keys: ~/.hermes/.env.
• Other settings: ~/.hermes/config.yaml.
• The agent's identity file is ~/.hermes/SOUL.md. Memories are in ~/.hermes/memories/.
• The command is ~/.local/bin/hermes and the code is in ~/.hermes/hermes-agent/.
• Update the desktop app with its in-app Update control.
• Update a command line install with hermes update.

Before a big update, read How to update Hermes Agent safely.

Common problems

• hermes: command not found: reload your shell with source ~/.zshrc, or open a new Terminal window.
• Permission denied on source ~/.zshrc: the file permissions are wrong. The FAQ fix is chmod 644 ~/.zshrc.
• Running the gateway as a background service and it cannot find Node or ffmpeg: launchd uses a minimal PATH. Run hermes gateway install again after installing new tools so it captures the updated PATH.
• Do not use sudo with the installer. The FAQ says it installs to ~/.local/bin.

Still stuck? See Hermes Agent install or update failed.

Next step

Next: follow Hermes Agent setup: your first 24 hours. To reach your agent from your phone, connect a chat app with the messaging gateway: Hermes Agent messaging gateway explained. On a Mac, hermes gateway install sets it up as a launchd agent so it starts when you log in.

Spotted something wrong or out of date? Tell us on X at @HermesWatcher↗ (opens in a new tab) and we will fix it.

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