# Skills, plugins & MCP

> Extend Hermes with reusable procedures, new tools and external tool servers.

Canonical: https://hermeswatcher.com/topics/skills-plugins-mcp

Skills teach Hermes a procedure. Plugins add tools and lifecycle behavior. MCP connects external tool servers. They overlap in what they can achieve, so this hub explains which to reach for and how to check each one is actually being used.

## Guides, tools and workflows

- [Skills: reusable procedures for repeated work](https://hermeswatcher.com/tools/skills.md): Package a successful procedure so Hermes can load the relevant instructions when a similar task returns.
- [Plugins: add tools and lifecycle behavior](https://hermeswatcher.com/tools/plugins.md): Extend Hermes with custom tools, hooks, and integrations when instructions alone cannot supply the needed capability.
- [MCP: connect external tool servers](https://hermeswatcher.com/tools/mcp.md): Expose selected tools from a local or remote MCP server to Hermes without building a native tool first.
- [Home Assistant: let Hermes see and control your smart home](https://hermeswatcher.com/tools/home-assistant.md): Install the official homeassistant plugin to give Hermes smart-home tools and react to entity state changes.
- [Voice and TTS: spoken replies and voice-note transcription](https://hermeswatcher.com/tools/voice-tts.md): Choose a text-to-speech and speech-to-text provider so Hermes can talk back and understand voice messages.
- [Image generation: create images from a text prompt](https://hermeswatcher.com/tools/image-generation.md): Pick an image backend such as FAL.ai, OpenAI, OpenRouter, xAI or Krea so the agent can generate images on request.
- [Code execution: let the agent script multi-step tool work](https://hermeswatcher.com/tools/code-execution.md): The execute_code tool lets Hermes write and run a Python script that calls its own tools, collapsing many steps into one.
- [IDE integration (ACP): run Hermes inside your code editor](https://hermeswatcher.com/tools/ide-integration-acp.md): Start Hermes in Agent Client Protocol mode so editors like VS Code, Zed and JetBrains IDEs can use it as a coding agent.
- [Hermes Agent skills vs plugins vs MCP: which to use](https://hermeswatcher.com/learn/skills-plugins-and-mcp.md): Match the extension to the missing capability instead of installing three different things to solve one problem.
- [Hermes Agent MCP tool missing or failing](https://hermeswatcher.com/troubleshoot/mcp-tool-missing-or-failing.md): Separate discovery, connection, authentication and operation failures using one known read-only request.
- [How to write your first Hermes Agent skill](https://hermeswatcher.com/learn/writing-your-first-skill.md): A step-by-step walkthrough of creating a SKILL.md, where to put it, how Hermes discovers and loads it, and how to keep agent-written skills under review.
- [Hermes Agent not using your skill](https://hermeswatcher.com/troubleshoot/skill-not-being-used.md): What to check when Hermes ignores a skill you wrote or installed, from file location and frontmatter to platform filters, trust and session timing.
- [Hermes Agent vision: send it screenshots and images](https://hermeswatcher.com/learn/vision-and-images.md): How to attach images in the terminal or from chat apps, how Hermes routes them for vision and text-only models, and the settings that keep image-heavy sessions affordable.
- [A three-person software house uses Hermes skills to fill its sales and marketing gaps](https://hermeswatcher.com/case-studies/blog-halfbitstudio-software-house): Halfbit Studio, a three-person software house with no sales or marketing staff, describes using Hermes for competitor analysis, lead research, outreach coaching and event scouting, with each workflow saved as a reusable skill. It shows a small team turning one-off research prompts into repeatable procedures that hold company knowledge.
- [Ten fixes for running Hermes as an always-on Railway service with a Telegram bot](https://hermeswatcher.com/case-studies/tessakriesel-railway-telegram): The author packaged Hermes in her own Docker image, deployed it to Railway as a persistent gateway, and connected Telegram, Notion MCP and fallback models. She wrote up the ten problems that cost her time. Most are general container lessons that apply to any Docker-based Hermes host.
- [Running a small service business from lead to payment with owner-approved skills](https://hermeswatcher.com/case-studies/github-hewi333-service-business): A hackathon team published 16 Hermes skills that they report used to run a real owner-operated service business over Telegram, from quoting through payment links and bookkeeping. Every step involving money, customers or accounts was set up as draft, owner approval, then execution.
- [Thirty skills in, three kept: a crypto investor's personal analyst setup](https://hermeswatcher.com/case-studies/defi0xjeff-30-skills): A DeFi investor reports spending roughly $150-200 in tokens over two weeks experimenting with about 30 Hermes skills, and narrowing down to three that earned their place: a morning X briefing, a bookmark digest, and a daily reflection built on an external memory provider.

## Questions

- [What are skills?](https://hermeswatcher.com/faq#what-are-skills)
- [Where are skills stored?](https://hermeswatcher.com/faq#where-are-skills-stored)
- [How do I find, choose and install skills and plugins?](https://hermeswatcher.com/faq#install-skills-from-hub)
- [Does Hermes write its own skills or plugins, and how do I make it save a lesson reliably?](https://hermeswatcher.com/faq#does-hermes-create-skills)
- [What's the difference between plugins and MCP servers?](https://hermeswatcher.com/faq#plugins-vs-mcp)
- [How do I connect an MCP server, including a custom one?](https://hermeswatcher.com/faq#add-mcp-server)
- [Can Claude Code, Cursor or Codex use Hermes as a tool?](https://hermeswatcher.com/faq#hermes-as-mcp-server)
- [Why don’t all my skills show up in Telegram’s command menu?](https://hermeswatcher.com/faq#too-many-skills-telegram)
- [How do web search and fetch work, and do I need a paid key? Is DeepSeek supported?](https://hermeswatcher.com/faq#free-web-search)
- [How do I make Hermes use a specific skill or tool instead of its default?](https://hermeswatcher.com/faq#force-skill-or-tool)
- [How many skills, tools and plugins can I add before performance suffers?](https://hermeswatcher.com/faq#how-many-tools-skills)
- [Can Hermes see and control my phone?](https://hermeswatcher.com/faq#control-my-phone)
- [Should I use Composio for app connections?](https://hermeswatcher.com/faq#composio)

All answers: https://hermeswatcher.com/faq.md

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HermesWatcher is an independent guide. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Nous Research. The [official Hermes Agent documentation](https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs) and [repository](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent) from Nous Research are the authority; each page here lists the official sources it was written from. If this site and the official docs disagree, trust the official docs. Index for agents: https://hermeswatcher.com/llms.txt