Big Idea

The argument in one line.

The Hermes desktop app lowers the floor for running 24/7 agents without a terminal, but its native messaging integrations are what actually separate it from Claude Code and Codex right now.

Who This Is For

Read if. Skip if.

READ IF YOU ARE…

You want to run a local AI agent that responds on Telegram or WhatsApp without configuring a separate bridge.
You are new to agentic AI tools and want something that installs like normal software with a skills marketplace already loaded.
You are evaluating Hermes vs Claude Code vs Codex and want an honest side-by-side from a practitioner.
You are considering scheduled cron tasks for a daily AI briefing and want to understand the hardware constraints.

SKIP IF…

You are already productive in Claude Code or Codex and primarily need raw coding capability.
You need your crons to fire around the clock from a laptop you close at night.

TL;DR

The full version, fast.

Hermes Agent launched a desktop app that installs without touching a terminal and ships with dozens of pre-built skills. The standout feature is native messaging setup: Telegram, WhatsApp, and Slack connect entirely through the UI. The catch is that scheduled crons only fire while the machine is running, so true 24/7 use requires a dedicated always-on device or VPS. Hermes supports OpenRouter, DeepSeek, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google from a single model dropdown. Honest verdict: stick with Claude Code or Codex if you are a power user, but Hermes is the clearest path for non-technical people entering the agentic space.

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Chapters

Where the time goes.

00:00 – 00:58

01 · Desktop App Launch

Introduces Hermes as the most popular 24/7 open-source agent, announces the desktop app, previews the video scope.

00:58 – 02:04

02 · Skills and Tools

Walkthrough of the Hermes UI: new session chat, skills marketplace (Humanizer, ExcaliDraw, Google Workspace, Linear, PowerPoint), built-in tools (cron, code execution, web browsing).

02:04 – 03:40

03 · Messaging Setup

Sponsor mention, then live Telegram bot setup via BotFather, bot token, user ID configuration, and enabling the integration.

03:40 – 04:30

04 · Gateway Activation

Starting the messaging gateway, the receptionist metaphor, confirming Telegram message routing works end-to-end.

04:30 – 05:55

05 · Mobile vs Desktop

Where Hermes fits: owns mobile messaging; Claude Code/Codex win on desktop for file visibility and artifacts.

05:55 – 07:04

06 · Cron Jobs and Limits

Demo of scheduled tasks; key limitation: crons only fire while the machine is on. Recommendation: dedicated always-on device or VPS.

07:04 – 07:36

07 · Model Support Notes

Model switcher demo (OpenRouter, DeepSeek, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google); notes initial Codex error that resolved.

07:36 – 08:33

08 · Verdict

Sticks with Claude Code and Codex for now; credits Hermes as the right direction for non-technical users.

Atomic Insights

Lines worth screenshotting.

Hermes installs like any desktop app with no terminal required, which is the entire pitch for non-technical users.
The built-in skills marketplace ships with dozens of pre-configured integrations (Linear, Notion, Google Workspace, PowerPoint) out of the box.
Native messaging setup is the actual differentiator: Telegram, WhatsApp, and Slack connect through the UI without a separate bridge or server.
The messaging gateway must be running on the host machine for any Telegram or WhatsApp message to reach the agent.
Desktop-based crons do not fire when the laptop is off. True 24/7 scheduling requires a Mac mini, always-on desktop, or a VPS.
Model agnosticism (OpenRouter, DeepSeek, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google from one dropdown) is the long-term moat if the interface matures.
On mobile, Hermes via Telegram is the preferred workflow. On desktop, Claude Code and Codex still win on capability and file visibility.
The capability gap between Hermes and Claude Code/Codex is real today. The honest call is to watch Hermes iterate, not switch yet.

Takeaway

Hermes is an on-ramp, not yet a replacement

WHAT TO LEARN

The desktop app removes the terminal barrier and bundles messaging integrations, but the honest verdict is that power users should watch Hermes iterate before switching from Claude Code or Codex.

No-terminal installation lowers the floor for non-technical users who want to run local agents without touching the command line.
The built-in skills marketplace gives beginners a working agent stack in minutes, with dozens of integrations pre-loaded and no configuration required.
Native messaging setup (Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack) is a genuine differentiator: most desktop agent tools require a separate bridge; Hermes handles it inside the same UI.
Scheduled crons in a desktop app only fire while the machine is on. 24/7 agents need a dedicated always-on device such as a Mac mini, old PC, or VPS.
Model agnosticism (OpenRouter, DeepSeek, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google all switchable from one dropdown) is the feature most likely to matter long-term once the app matures.
For builders already comfortable in Claude Code or Codex, the capability gap is real and acknowledged. Hermes desktop is worth watching, not switching to yet.

Glossary

Terms worth knowing.

Messaging gateway: A background process inside Hermes that routes messages from external platforms (Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack) to the local agent. If stopped, messages from those platforms do not reach the agent.
Skills (Hermes context): Pre-built capability packages that extend what the Hermes agent can do, such as connecting to Google Workspace or generating ExcaliDraw diagrams. Analogous to plugins or MCP servers in other agent frameworks.
Cron / scheduled task: A time-based job that runs automatically at a set interval. In Hermes desktop, these only execute while the host machine is powered on and running the app.
OpenRouter: An API aggregator providing access to many AI models (DeepSeek, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI) through a single endpoint, often at lower cost than going directly to each provider.
BotFather: The official Telegram bot for creating and managing other Telegram bots. Used to generate the bot token that connects Hermes to a Telegram channel.

Resources

Things they pointed at.

00:36productHermes Agent desktop app ↗

02:14productRoboNuggets community ↗

02:14productRUBRIC ↗

03:02toolTelegram BotFather ↗

07:05toolOpenRouter ↗

Quotables

Lines you could clip.

00:58

“Without you having to interface with the terminal, you now have Hermes set up on your device.”

Core promise in one sentence.→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote

03:40

“The gateway for platforms like Hermes is sort of like a receptionist where if that gateway is currently on, then if you are messaging your agents via Telegram, that receptionist basically routes your message to the Hermes agent that lives within this computer.”

Best plain-English explanation of agent messaging gateways.→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote

06:30

“If your laptop is off, these crons will actually not fire.”

Blunt limitation most people miss when buying into the 24/7 agent pitch.→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote

07:47

“If I were to choose an agentic coding platform on my desktop right now, I will probably stick to using Cloud Code as well as Codex because those are a bit more advanced platforms.”

Honest verdict from a practitioner.→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote

The Script

Word for word.

Read-along

Don't just watch it. Burn it in.

See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.

So Hermes, the most popular twenty four seven open source agent in the world just launched their own desktop app. And so instead of having to work through a terminal, you can simply download this app and you can set up Hermes agent in less than five minutes. And apart from that, you can also use the desktop app to easily set up Hermes in whichever messaging platform that you want.

So wherever that you want to talk to your agents, you can do it here. And so today, I'll show you how the new Hermes agent desktop app works, what are some of the cool things that you can do with it that you cannot do anywhere else, and whether you should consider using it instead of Codex or Cloud Code. Let's dive into it.

Alright. So to get the new Hermes desktop app, what you can do is to go to the Hermes website in this URL. And if you go to their desktop app in here, you'll be able to download that application for whichever OS that you are using, whether it's Mac, Windows, or Linux.

And once you have that, you have this really simple installation setup where you can install Hermes. And as simple as that, without you having to interface with the terminal, you now have Hermes set up on your device. Now from this interface, this may be familiar to you if you have used Codex or even the Cloud Code desktop app before because from here, can start a new session where you can just chat with your Hermes agent in here.

You can also browse the default skills or the skills that you have installed here in this view. And what's great is, at least for beginners, out of the box, Hermes already comes with a lot of really good skills. So there's some popular ones in here that you may be familiar with, like this humanizer skill, which shifts the sort of AI tools when it comes to writing.

There is an ExcaliDraw skill if you want to build diagrams. There's skills that let your agent work more effectively with tools like Google Workspace, Linear, Notion, and even PowerPoint. And there's just several dozen skills in here that are already prebuilt in, which I think is really good, especially for those who are beginners to the space.

You also have the tool says view in here, and this just gives you visibility of some of the tools that Hermes again comes prebuilt in with. So you have cron jobs, are scheduled jobs that you can just have Hermes run-in the background on a certain time schedule. It can, of course, execute code.

It can ask clarifying questions, browse the web, and a couple of other tools in here which you can either configure or leave as default. So again, pretty cool that out of the box it comes with a lot of these tools already.

Now one thing you may be curious about is the fact that with Hermes agents, similar to OpenClaw, you may be used to talking to them via messaging platforms like Telegram or WhatsApp. So the question is, where does it lie now when it comes to using the Hermes desktop app?

And by the way, if you're interested in going from just using AI to getting paid for it, then check out the Robo Nuggets community down in the description. We've got founders in there who landed their first client in weeks, live build sessions where we create this stuff together, and the actual templates behind what I just showed in this video.

The community is also the reason these lessons get made, so see that below if that's for you. Well, the great news is if you go to messaging in here, you actually can set up these messaging platforms one by one.

And again, you don't need to know about the terminal or even type in command line prompts in order to set these up. So to give one example, let's say if you're setting up Telegram, there's even a link to a setup guide in here, which basically just involves talking to the bot fodder and giving Hermes here your bot token. And just to quickly show that, if in case you haven't experienced that before, basically, you search for bot folder in Telegram, click on open, that will just give you space to give it a name.

So let's go with Hermo desktop, and let's give it this username. Let's see if that's available. Let's create the bot.

And now you have this bot token, which you could just provide here. In other allowed Telegram user IDs, you just need to provide your own user ID in here so that your Hermes agent knows to only accept messages from your account. And to get that, in case you don't know, is you just need to find user info bot over at Telegram, send it a message, and that will now give you your user ID back.

So we'll just paste that user ID here. We can click enabled and just save our changes for that to reflect. And now that that has been set up, you can see here that it's saying that the messaging gateway is currently stopped and that we need to start the gateway from the status bar to connect.

And basically, the gateway for platforms like Hermes is sort of like a receptionist where if that gateway is currently on, then if you are messaging your agents via Telegram, that receptionist basically routes your message to the Hermes agent that lives within this computer. So all we need to do is to start our gateway here at the bottom left.

And if you click on the system panel, that is where we could just restart this messaging. And once you click on restart messaging, then it should now say that the messaging gateway is currently running. Now a quick one, if in case that doesn't work for you, remember that you can always just ask your Hermes agent to do that itself.

So if you just send start the Hermes gateway as a prompt, then it should be able to start it up for you. And if we go back to our Telegram bot, you can see that if you type in a message in here, then it's now able to respond back. And so this now becomes quite a big deal.

Right? Because usually with these twenty four seven agents, the way that we commonly use them is they're sort of digital employees that are available for you on your messaging platforms like Telegram or WhatsApp. At least the way that I use them, Hermes is my preferred way for interacting with agents when I am on mobile.

But when you're on desktop, usually the tool of choice that you go to would be either Cloud Code or Codex because it's just more flexible and easier to work with versus having to talk to your agents via Telegram, which has limited visibility on the artifacts as well as the files that your agents are creating versus if you do it through these dedicated desktop apps.

But very clearly, you can see that with the way Hermes agent is going, they seem to be wanting to own that sort of space, where if you want agents that have unlimited flexibility in terms of the model that you want to use, whether it's open source models, OpenAI's models, or even Entropic or Google's models, then Hermes seems to be shaping up to be that one stop shop for everything.

And add to that the fact that natively, on its core, it has these messaging platforms where you can just add your agents to your Slack channels, for example, and you can add them to your WhatsApp or your Telegram channels, then I think if news research continues on this path and really makes this Hermes desktop app with the capabilities of an advanced tool like Codex, for example, then it really has potential to have a clear advantage over the other tools because of that flexibility and that model agnosticity that it can offer from within its software.

Now this tool is pretty new though, so obviously it's not perfect. To give one example, yes, you can set up a cron, like a scheduled task that runs, let's say, every day to give you that daily briefing that a lot of users are using their Hermes or OpenClaw agents for, and it'll be able to set that up pretty cleanly for you.

If you go to the cron button here at the bottom, you'll be able to see all of those scheduled crons or routines that this will run every day. And from here, you can pause or enable those crons in a nice interface. You can even trigger them directly here if you wish and also edit them if that's something that you wanna do.

Although, obviously, with these agentic platforms, usually, you just need to ask your agent to edit them for you or you can also delete them. The point that I wanted to say is that these crons, because your Hermes desktop is only installed in this laptop, if your laptop is off, these crons will actually not fire, which is why with these twenty four seven agent platforms like Hermes or OpenClaw, it's more advisable to install them in a separate device, let's say, that can run twenty four seven.

For example, a Mac mini or an old desktop computer or some people install it on a VPS assuming that you know how to secure that. And so if you wanted to try out Hermes yourself, just know that that limitation is currently there. The other indication of how new this desktop app is is when you set up the model for the first time for Hermes and you try to use OpenAI Codex, it will actually give you some sort of error message.

But if you actually switch the model here at the bottom right, you'll be able to find all of the model options that you have connected so far. So you can see I have open router in here which I was testing because that has the most availability, including these cheaper DeepSeek models that I can just switch to. But if you wanted to use OpenAI Codecs, that is also available and was actually successful in connecting even if it gave me that message earlier.

And so bottom line, if I were to choose an agentic coding platform on my desktop right now, I'll probably stick to using Cloud Code as well as Codex because those are a bit more advanced platforms. But what Hermes is doing here in my view is definitely in the right direction. And if they continue iterating on this product, it's actually shaping up to be a really good way for a lot of nontechnical people, especially those who are not so comfortable with using a terminal, to start using these agents more and more, which they can easily connect to their Telegram or their Slack and the other messaging platforms that they use in their day to day office work.

So there you go. That is the Hermes agent desktop app. Hope that was useful.

And if it is, then consider subscribing because that helps me a lot to put out more educational stuff like this. As always, thanks for watching until the end, and I'll see you all next time. Thank you.

The Hook

The bait, then the rug-pull.

The most-watched 24/7 open-source agent just shipped a desktop installer and the pitch is three words: no code needed. This walkthrough tests whether the app delivers on that claim, from first install through live Telegram integration and cron scheduling, ending with a straight answer on whether it can replace Claude Code or Codex.

CTA Breakdown