Still figuring it out, but it's been really convenient to have an always-on agent that has access to internal systems and can be triggered by webhooks. Some examples of what we use it for:
- automatically fixing simple CI failures
- getting production alerts and automatically creating RCAs and a fix PR
- periodically checking slow DB queries and finding ways to speed them up.
- creating charts to answer one-off questions about our data
I've tried using it as an on-the-go coding agent as well, but found I prefer more interactive agents, so I can see what the code looks like.
I think the interesting challenge isn’t running agents, it’s reviewing their work. The more code agents produce, the more important provenance, review ergonomics, and trust become. I also suspect repository platforms will need to evolve there over the next few years.
At least for me, I have a couple dozen years of DB experience but robot, given performance metrics, can get really close to optimal on a tactical level (single query or pattern of queries) but can't yet do the full normalize/denormalize level of improvements without supervision. But really solid if you have one misbehaving query and give it explain analyze access on a read only account
Hermes is huge and packed with features you probably don't need. I prefer smaller one I can extend as necessary, there are so many on github now and it is fun to test them but have been impressed with dirge (https://github.com/dirge-code/dirge) not affiliated.
I have one reading my second tier RSS feeds and newsletters and giving me news/market updates filtered for things important to me
I'm not contradicting this but offering a contrast, I like Hermes because it simultaneously lowers barrier of entry and shows you what possibilities are unlocked by agents. I don't think I would have the time, interest or creativity to jump into the deep end by either extending an existing harness or rolling my own from the start. This also isn't an argument for doing just that, I might do so in the future, but critically only after Hermes has shown me what's possible and my preferences are developed.
I completely agree. I started with aichat[0] before the current agent trend and hit all kinds of bumps implementing agentic loops on my own. Then goose[1] showed me what a whole team working toward the same idea could do right before the official Claude Code harness which had all the bells and whistles. Now I know better what I want and its mostly less ram usage and a small set of primitives.
I still use Claude code (and codex and other big contenders) because they know what they are doing and innovate in ways I don't want to miss. And sometimes they are better at tasks.
I feel the same but my preference is for Cecli (cecli.dev)
It does what I need it to do and since I invested so much time in setting it up and even contributing to development it is my go to for coding and even managing my VPS as well as business tasks
I had the same line of thought and spent a while with nanoclaw before realizing that adding the features I want back in would have made future updates too painful. I ended up switching to Hermes and aggressively disabling tools/skills and it's been pretty fine so far. I got more use cases set up than I did in my time with nanoclaw.
Totally fair, I still use Claude code for tasks since it is so polished. I think I just dont have that complicated of use cases so in the end performance should reflect my lightweight needs as the priority.
Hermes is what I was using but I still found it annoying I often wanted to operate 1-2 levels deeper.
Yesterday I just decided to try writing my own version (100% just for me, not open source, no monetization plan, incredibly custom) and I've been enjoying working on it so far (I know, I know, it's been a day, honeymoon period and all that).
Part of it is I like building software (even if I'm not writing every line) and part is I like having full control. Turns out (and many people have said this) the basic agent loop really isn't all that special. There are a million levers to pull and what not outside the base loop but that the fun part for me. Trying out different ways to add on to the core concept.
I'm really enjoying being untethered for things like "how will I monetize?" or "how do I make this generic so others can use it?". If I need functionality I just add it in, I don't need to make it infinitely pluggable, etc.
All that said, I'm thankful to things like nanoclaw and then Hermes for exposing me to the core ideas. I just want to put my own spin on it.
I didn't have good experience with Hermes. Vellum.ai was better, but unfortunately it had a bug where opencode go providers failed to work for a time, so I instead starting writing my own.
I'm currently using it to help me with my oncall, first responder to our any production alerts. It's not as efficient as coding agent by default, but it's been tremendously helpful to me.
hermes is great to get started with, but it's packed to the gills with stuff you'll probably use one time just to test it. and this eats in to your context so if you're hoping to run it on a lighter-weight local model you'll run in to some trouble. if you go into it planning to customize/thin it out it's solid
- automatically fixing simple CI failures
- getting production alerts and automatically creating RCAs and a fix PR
- periodically checking slow DB queries and finding ways to speed them up.
- creating charts to answer one-off questions about our data
I've tried using it as an on-the-go coding agent as well, but found I prefer more interactive agents, so I can see what the code looks like.