Hermes Agent Updates & Release Notes

Hermes Agent v0.21.5 (v2026.9.24)

Release Date: September 24, 2026

Patch release. This tag rolls up the ~460 PRs merged since v0.21.4 into a stable tagged release for downstream consumers (Docker images, Hermes Cloud, hosted deployments). Full curated notes for this window are deferred to v0.22.0.

About this release

Measured at commit f97608f178d1ffeca59860195ab7da295f7c8e5f, the window since v0.21.4 contains 1,610 non-merge commits across 4,828 changed files (+164,132 / −149,440), 460 merged PRs and 475 closed issues.

Also in the window, undocumented here on purpose: a Desktop plugin SDK wave (composer draft API, session-list and row-decoration slots, sidebar nav prefs, model-pill label providers, typed settings/skills/toolsets/profiles bridges, a sandboxed embed primitive, appearance-settings slot, and a public event bridge for plugin backends); a Simple/Advanced interface mode for Desktop; the Connectors page replacing the MCP tab, with "Connect now" for a freshly installed plugin's MCP servers and installed plugins' tools and skills going live in every open chat; onboarding that offers catalog plugins beside connectors; complete French, German and Spanish Desktop catalogs plus an RTL/LTR text direction setting; custom model entry from the composer and Settings pickers; function-key and dictation voice shortcuts; per-profile stop/start/restart under the host multiplexer and gateway.standalone to opt a profile out; the live dock showing t…

Hermes Agent v0.21.4 (v2026.9.21)

Release Date: September 21, 2026

Patch release. This tag rolls up the ~1,800 PRs merged since v0.21.3 into a stable tagged release for downstream consumers (Docker images, Hermes Cloud, hosted deployments). Full curated notes for this window are deferred to v0.22.0.

About this release

Measured at commit 4b8a8134009a8727a289bcabeb0019fedd353128, the window since v0.21.3 contains 5,071 non-merge commits across 5,169 changed files (+312,961 / −62,855), 1,812 merged PRs and 2,116 closed issues.

Also in the window, undocumented here on purpose: a host-wide gateway singleton lock with a rendezvous record, and Desktop attaching to the running host backend instead of spawning a second one; one backend-owned connector operation with a setup card on Desktop, TUI and CLI; --format stream-json structured JSONL output for the CLI; skills.auto_load pinning skills into every new session's prompt; a Desktop chat/UI font picker, one-click local engine updates, and plugin uninstall from the Plugins hub; a decline unauthorized-DM behavior for the gateway; a configurable MCP discovery connect cap (mcp.discovery_concurrency); session_search after/before bounds plus OR-relaxed recall retry; hermes sessions set-journal-mode; LTX 2.5 and Kling O3 in the video catalogs; a website page for every catalog plugin and author, with pinned-commit READMEs and added/updated sorting; a dozen new community plugins in the catalog (ta…

Hermes Agent v0.21.3 (v2026.9.14)

Release Date: September 14, 2026

Patch release. This tag rolls up the ~338 PRs merged since v0.21.2 into a stable tagged release for downstream consumers (Docker images, Hermes Cloud, hosted deployments). It exists so the remote-gateway sign-in fixes below reach Cloud agents, which auto-update to the newest release tag.

What this patch ships for remote Desktop / Cloud users

• Remote dashboard sessions no longer expire on refresh bursts (#110061, fixes #55712; salvage #71548 @Doud-FR, #55717 @liuhao1024). Both refresh paths on the gateway (cookie gate and the desktop's native bearer route) now coalesce concurrent requests carrying the same rotating refresh token, so a Desktop wake burst can no longer replay an already-rotated token into the Portal's reuse detection and revoke the whole session. Refresh also runs off the event loop, so a slow identity provider no longer freezes /api/status. Pairs with Portal-side NousResearch/hermes-portal#1209 (sliding 30-day idle horizon, 5-minute rotated-token grace).

Also requested for this tag

• Long-lived processes stop leaking duplicate state.db writer handles (#110934, fixes #100896 #103339; salvage #107974 @kshitijk4poor, mapping @Rroven): gateway, dashboard/Desktop backend, ACP and CLI readers attach read-only and in-process writers share the registry handle, so the N live SessionDB handles precursor stops firing on a healthy topology.

About this release …

Hermes Agent v0.21.2 (v2026.9.11) — The state.db Patch Release

Release Date: September 11, 2026

Patch release. v0.21.0 shipped a large rewrite of the session store's connection handling, and for some installs it made state.db fragile: second writers cancelling each other's locks, healthy databases reported as corrupt, one bad row killing sessions list. This release closes that class and rolls up everything else that landed on main in the four days since v0.21.1.

About this release

Measured at commit 04dd80a977f40b05e5b2054111747af07a61886a, the window since v0.21.1 contains 947 non-merge commits across 1,869 changed files (+182,504 / −15,564) and 312 merged PRs. 140 contributors appear in commits, co-author trailers, or salvage credits.

✨ Highlights

state.db reliability campaign (six PRs, 44 issues closed)

If your state.db broke after 0.21.0, this is the release for you. Six PRs fix the root causes rather than the symptoms: …

Hermes Agent v0.21.1 (v2026.9.7)

Release Date: September 7, 2026

Patch release. This tag rolls up current main since v0.21.0 for tagged deployments and downstream consumers.

About this release

Measured at commit 6178e9f4eed8d99f4fc550add939d58c7bed6206, the window since v0.21.0 contains 5,139 non-merge commits across 4,364 changed files (+601,014 / −768,419). GitHub reports 632 merged PRs in the release window at preparation time. These figures exclude the release-version commit.

The rollup includes the codebase modularization, file-operation and startup performance work, provider and model updates, desktop session controls and browser annotations, MCP authorization improvements, cron scheduling and delivery fixes, and delegation reliability improvements. This patch does not attempt to enumerate or announce every feature in the window.

Full curated release notes for this window will ship with v0.22.0, covering everything since v0.21.0, including the intervening patch releases, feature details, and complete contributor credits.

Updating

• Existing install: hermes update
• Fresh install: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash
• Managed deployments should update through their deployment tooling using the new tag.

Full Changelog: v2026.8.31...v2026.9.7

Hermes Agent v0.21.0 (v2026.8.31)

Release Date: August 31, 2026 Since v0.20.0: ~5,800 commits · ~2,475 merged PRs · ~5,680 files changed · ~869,000 insertions · ~135,000 deletions · ~2,100 issues closed · 760+ contributors

The Pantheon Release. v0.20.0 made Hermes the herald — he spoke, and he carried word to other agents. In v0.21.0 the gods assemble. Bot Mode ships built into the desktop app: a society of named agents with their own faces and group chats, where your bots talk to each other — and to you — like a team, not a toolbox. Around that spine: cron jobs gained memory and continuity so scheduled agents actually learn between runs, subagents can be steered live mid-flight, the MCP surface became a real command center, and the agent can now drive the desktop's own browser. This release rolls up everything from the v0.20.1–v0.20.6 infrastructure patch tags — those windows are fully documented here.

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✨ Highlights …

Hermes Agent v0.20.6 (v2026.8.27)

Release Date: August 27, 2026

Patch release. This tag rolls up the ~525 PRs merged since v0.20.5 into a stable tagged release for downstream consumers (Docker images, hosted deployments, fresh installs).

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About this release

Since v0.20.5 (v2026.8.19, tagged August 21), this window landed ~1,313 commits across ~1,557 files (+177,113 / −21,682) — ~525 merged PRs including consent-gated real-profile browsing (use your default Chromium profile for local browsing, with Windows close-with-approval flow); the desktop Browser getting its own OS window plus a managed SSH remote-update engine and fleet profile rail; a large remote MCP catalog expansion (50+ live-verified vendor-hosted servers incl. Cloudflare, Grafana Cloud, Better Stack, Railway); TTL result caching for web_search/web_extract; lean-tail compression as the default; multi-query tool_search with stemming; opt-in OS-keychain encryption for stored secrets (no more per-launch macOS Keychain prompts); updaters pausing gateways over the control socket instead of tree-killing them; image/package-managed installs refusing unsafe in-place updates (#91277 Phase 3); cron durable-incident acks and clearer code-skew failures; Slack link-unfurl controls; shared Docker container identities; pluggable terminal environment backends; and new models across the pickers (GLM-5.3-Flash, MiniMax M3 free, MiniMax H3 Max video). …

Hermes Agent v0.20.5 (v2026.8.19)

Release Date: August 19, 2026

Patch release. This tag rolls up the ~323 PRs merged since v0.20.4 into a stable tagged release for downstream consumers (Docker images, hosted deployments, fresh installs).

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About this release

Since v0.20.4 (v2026.8.18, tagged August 18), this window landed ~746 commits across ~1,250 files (+111,500 / −20,701) — ~323 merged PRs including Bot Mode group-room threads, foldable conversation summaries, blob-face avatars, and PDF/file attachments with drag & drop; the keyless web tier (5-vendor free rotation with ring failover, web search on fresh installs with zero keys); a CLI polish wave (fuzzy /model picker, Ctrl+P command palette, richer /status); execution-discipline and runtime stall guards from the Composio eval findings; hermes update receipts and fleet --plan verification; hermes worktree list/prune; the opencode-free zero-auth provider; multi-question clarify; desktop perf work (paint-first Bot Mode hydration, compositor spinners, React Compiler in both renderers); and cron jobs gaining persistent memory and per-job reasoning effort.

Full curated release notes for this window will ship with v0.21.0, which will document everything from v0.20.0 onward — highlights, feature areas, and complete contributor credits. Nothing in this window is skipped.

Updating

• hermes update from an existing install …

Hermes Agent v0.20.4 (v2026.8.18)

Release Date: August 18, 2026

Patch release. This tag rolls up the ~74 PRs merged since v0.20.3 into a stable tagged release for downstream consumers (Docker images, hosted deployments, fresh installs).

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About this release

Since v0.20.3 (v2026.8.16.2, tagged August 17), this window landed ~146 commits across ~265 files (+21,697 / −2,217) — ~74 merged PRs including the desktop glass/translucency surface work (matte glass, frost picker, macOS pre-select), the tabbed SESSIONS|BOTS sidebar with per-bot hide/unhide, Bot Mode group-chat fixes (long-running member turns, Markdown rendering, cross-machine routing), NVIDIA SkillEvaluator Tier 1 advisory scanning on skill installs (license + security checks), cron media-send hardening (configurable timeout, manual-run attachments, missed-fire surfacing), SessionDB event-loop-thread and contention fixes, hermes update parked-branch honesty, and kanban native OS notifications.

Full curated release notes for this window will ship with v0.21.0, which will document everything from v0.20.0 onward — highlights, feature areas, and complete contributor credits. Nothing in this window is skipped.

Updating

• hermes update from an existing install
• Fresh install: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

Full Changelog: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/compare/v2026.8.16.2...v2026.8.18

Hermes Agent v0.20.3 (v2026.8.16.2)

Release Date: August 16, 2026

Patch release. This tag rolls up the ~125 PRs merged since v0.20.2 into a stable tagged release for downstream consumers (Docker images, hosted deployments, fresh installs).

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About this release

Since v0.20.2 (v2026.8.16, tagged earlier today), this window landed ~250 commits across ~461 files (+42,613 / −1,641) — ~125 merged PRs including the MCP 2.x SDK migration and 2026-07-28 stateless protocol support, the bundled Bot Mode (hermes-bots) plugin with the core teammate protocol, the CommandCode provider plugin, subprocess Python runtime ownership hardening (PYTHONHOME/PYTHONPATH isolation), Cua Driver 0.20 runtime contracts for computer use, kanban worktree/dispatch fixes, cron continuity flags, desktop remote-gateway headers and connection self-healing, cron scheduler self-heal (EMFILE recovery, stale-claim reconciliation, wedged-job re-arm), session handoff data-loss fixes, plus a wave of ports from the ecosystem scout slate (plugin install security scanning, /worktree, /rollback hand-edit preservation, UTF-16 file reads, Gemini 3 tool-call ID preservation, and more).

Full curated release notes for this window will ship with v0.21.0, which will document everything from v0.20.0 onward — highlights, feature areas, and complete contributor credits. Nothing in this window is skipped.

Updating

• hermes update from an existing install …

Hermes Agent v0.20.2 (v2026.8.16)

Release Date: August 16, 2026

Patch release. This tag rolls up the ~397 PRs merged since v0.20.1 into a stable tagged release for downstream consumers (Docker images, hosted deployments, fresh installs).

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About this release

Since v0.20.1 (v2026.8.13, tagged August 13), this window landed ~967 commits across ~1,279 files (+128,522 / −7,622) — ~397 merged PRs of fixes and improvements spanning the desktop app (multi-gateway Connections registry, profile-scoped refreshes, MCP health checks and deep links), the CLI (Windows update probes, Kitty keyboard protocol, chat -c hardening), the gateway (persisted model routes, /loop completion, Telegram DM topics), prompt caching for LiteLLM Claude on the OpenAI wire, cron hardening, auth resolution through profile scopes, and installer robustness on both Linux and Windows.

Full curated release notes for this window will ship with v0.21.0, which will document everything from v0.20.0 onward — highlights, feature areas, and complete contributor credits. Nothing in this window is skipped.

Updating

• hermes update from an existing install
• Fresh install: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

Full Changelog: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/compare/v2026.8.13...v2026.8.16

Hermes Agent v0.20.1 (v2026.8.13)

Release Date: August 13, 2026

Patch release. This tag rolls up the ~656 PRs merged since v0.20.0 into a stable tagged release for downstream consumers (Docker images, hosted deployments, and anyone installing from the latest tag).

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About this release

Since v0.20.0 (August 3), this window landed 1,444 commits across ~656 merged PRs, touching 2,172 files (+233,872 / −75,244), and closed ~481 issues. It is a broad stabilization-and-fixes rollup spanning the desktop app, gateway platforms, installers, tool system, and provider catalogs.

Full curated release notes for this window will ship with v0.21.0, which will document everything from v0.20.0 onward — highlights, feature areas, and complete contributor credits. Nothing in this window is skipped.

Updating

• Existing installs: hermes update
• Fresh install: see the installer one-liner in the README

Full Changelog: v2026.8.3...v2026.8.13

Hermes Agent v0.20.0 (v2026.8.3)

Release Date: August 3, 2026 Since v0.19.0: ~3,650 commits · ~1,400 merged PRs · ~5,200 files changed · ~559,000 insertions · ~405,000 deletions · ~1,200 issues closed · 650+ contributors

The Herald Release. Hermes is the herald of the gods, and this release makes him one in earnest: he speaks (real-time conversational voice with streaming TTS, barge-in, on-device wake words, and hands-free control across the CLI, desktop, and every audio-capable gateway platform), he carries word to other agents (A2A v1.0), he announces events to your systems (signed outbound webhooks), and he cites his sources (grounded research with verifiable citations and fact-checking). Around that spine: the desktop app became a platform (artifacts with live preview, a plugin SDK, quick-entry from anywhere, multiple windows), the CLI got a wave of power commands (! shell mode, /init, /diff, /context, /focus), compression got smarter and gentler, and the tools themselves now recover from their own failures instead of making the model guess. This release rolls up everything from the v0.19.1 infrastructure patch tag — that window is fully documented here.

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✨ Highlights …

Hermes Agent v0.19.1 (v2026.7.30)

Release Date: July 30, 2026

Patch release. This tag rolls up the ~1,000+ PRs merged since v0.19.0 into a stable tagged release for downstream consumers (Docker images, hosted deployments, fresh installs).

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About this release

Since v2026.7.20 (v0.19.0, July 20): ~2,789 commits · ~4,748 files changed · ~442,000 insertions · ~392,300 deletions on main. This window is dominated by bug-fix and salvage waves across the gateway, voice subsystem, desktop app, and installer, plus continued platform work (Buzz/Nostr channel, FLUX3 video generation and delivery, Telegram media reliability, voice-mode regressions).

Full curated release notes for this window will ship with v0.20.0, which will document everything from v0.19.0 onward — highlights, feature areas, and complete contributor credits. Nothing in this window is skipped.

Updating

hermes update
# or fresh install:
curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash

Full Changelog: v2026.7.20...v2026.7.30

Hermes Agent v0.19.0 (v2026.7.20)

Release Date: July 20, 2026 Since v0.18.0: ~2,245 commits · ~1,065 merged PRs · ~2,465 files changed · ~300,000 insertions · ~36,000 deletions · ~3,300 issues closed · 450+ community contributors

The Quicksilver Release. Hermes is the messenger god, and this window we made him move like it. First-turn time-to-first-token dropped ~80% on every platform, reasoning streams live by default, the desktop app got a ~20-PR speed overhaul (14× faster streaming markdown, virtualized diffs, snappy session switching), and the TUI renders markdown incrementally. Around that speed spine: you can now manage your Nous subscription without leaving the terminal, plug Bitwarden and 1Password straight into Hermes, let smart approvals judge flagged commands for you by default, watch your subagents work live, and trust that a finished response survives a gateway crash thanks to a durable delivery ledger. This release also rolls up everything from the v0.18.1 and v0.18.2 infrastructure patch tags — those windows are fully documented here.

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✨ Highlights …

Hermes Agent v0.18.2 (v2026.7.7.2)

Release Date: July 7, 2026

Same-day patch on top of v0.18.1, picking up the WhatsApp Baileys dependency fix needed for tagged-release Docker builds.

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What's in this patch

• fix(whatsapp): unpin Baileys from git commit, use published 7.0.0-rc13 (#60643) — the WhatsApp bridge dependency now installs from the published npm release instead of a pinned git commit, making installs and Docker image builds reliable.

Full curated release notes for the entire post-v0.18.0 window ship with v0.19.0.

Updating

hermes update        # existing installs
pip install -U hermes-agent

Full Changelog: v2026.7.7...v2026.7.7.2

Hermes Agent v0.18.1 (v2026.7.7)

Release Date: July 7, 2026

Patch release. This tag rolls up the ~660 PRs merged since v0.18.0 (July 1) — bug fixes, hardening, and in-progress feature work — into a stable tagged release for downstream consumers (Docker images, hosted deployments, PyPI installs).

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About this release

This is an infrastructure-driven patch tag rather than a fully curated release. Since v0.18.0 shipped six days ago, main has accumulated roughly 667 commits across ~990 files (+89.5k/−10.4k lines), including installer/updater self-healing on Windows, dashboard and gateway fixes, WhatsApp dashboard pairing, MCP and provider fixes, and a large volume of stability work.

Full curated release notes for this window will ship with v0.19.0, which will document everything from v0.18.0 onward — highlights, feature areas, and complete contributor credits. Nothing in this window is skipped; it's documented in the next minor release.

Updating

hermes update        # existing installs
pip install -U hermes-agent

Full Changelog: v2026.7.1...v2026.7.7