Hermes Agent: Phone and schedules

This is page 4 of 8 in the Hermes Agent guide. It connects Hermes to a chat app on your phone and sets up scheduled jobs, then weighs each setting that trades safety for capability.

Wait until the first job on page 2 looked right. Facts here were checked on 14 November 2026.

Your phone and schedules

Hermes does not install on your phone. Instead, you chat with a bot inside an app like Telegram, and that bot talks to the Hermes gateway on your computer.

The computer must stay on. If your computer sleeps, or the gateway is closed, the phone bot does not answer and scheduled jobs do not run. Hermes Cloud keeps an agent running for you, but it comes with paid Nous Portal plans, and Plus, at $20 a month, includes one.

Telegram is the easiest bot. The desktop app has a "Create with QR" option. From a terminal, the commands are hermes gateway setup, then hermes gateway start.

Allow only yourself. When a stranger messages your bot, Hermes sends them a pairing code instead of answering. Approve only a code you asked for yourself, with hermes pairing approve <platform> <code>. You can also put only your own Telegram user ID in the .env file as TELEGRAM_ALLOWED_USERS. To find your user ID, send any message to @userinfobot in Telegram. In the desktop app, Create with QR fills it in for you. Never set GATEWAY_ALLOW_ALL_USERS.

Skip WhatsApp. Hermes's built-in WhatsApp link pretends to be WhatsApp Web, and Hermes's own docs say this can get the number banned. If you try it anyway, use a spare phone number, not your own.

Schedules. You can ask in plain words, like "every morning at 9, send me a summary." You can also type a command, for example:

/cron add "every 2h" "Check server status"

Cron is the name for scheduled jobs, and the gateway checks for due jobs every 60 seconds. If a scheduled job tries a dangerous command, Hermes blocks it by default, so leave it that way.

In a phone chat, type /new now and then, because otherwise one long chat keeps growing and gets more expensive.

What you should see your bot answers only you, and a scheduled job shows up in your chat while the computer is on.

Trade-offs: safety versus capability

Approval mode. The setting approvals.mode decides who answers when a command matches Hermes's dangerous list. With manual you answer every time, and with off nobody is asked at all. With smart, the default, a second model allows the command, blocks it, or asks you.

• You gain: smart means fewer interruptions. With off, a long job runs straight through without stopping.
• You risk: with smart, a model can say yes for you to a risky command. With off, every command runs on your real computer with your account's power and no question asked, and only a short blocklist of catastrophic commands still holds.
• Makes sense when: you are a beginner, or your agent can reach the host, which on the local backend it always can, so use manual. Do not use off, /yolo, or hermes --yolo on the local backend.

Starting folder. The setting terminal.cwd decides where scheduled jobs and phone chats start, and HERMES_WRITE_SAFE_ROOT, when set to a folder, stops Hermes's two file-writing tools from saving outside it. This guide could not confirm how to set it in the desktop app.

• You gain: pointing Hermes at a real folder, such as one full of your documents, lets it work on the files you actually care about.
• You risk: neither setting is a wall, because a command can still name a path outside the folder and change files there.
• Makes sense when: the folder holds only copies, or files you have backed up, such as a backed-up folder of photos to rename. Until you trust how Hermes behaves, keep pointing it at an empty agent-tryout folder.

Skill writes. With skills.write_approval: true, new skills wait for /skills approve, while the default lets Hermes write and rewrite its own skills freely.

• You gain: with free writes, Hermes gets better at jobs it repeats without you reviewing every saved how-to.
• You risk: a skill shapes how Hermes handles later jobs, so a mistaken skill keeps repeating its mistake until someone reads it. The approval gate also does not cover skill files changed directly by a command.
• Makes sense when: you are still learning, so leave approval on and read each skill before you approve it.

Local or Docker backend. The setting terminal.backend decides where commands run. With local, the default, they run on your real computer with "no isolation." With docker, they run inside a container, and Hermes turns its approval questions off because the container is the wall.

• You gain: with docker, a mistake lands inside the container instead of on your real files, and jobs run without stopping for questions.
• You risk: you lose every approval question, so you can no longer approve or refuse a command before it runs, and you have to set up Docker yourself.
• Makes sense when: you are comfortable with Docker and want unattended jobs that touch nothing outside the container. It is not a beginner step, so stay on local with manual approvals for the first hour.

Phone chat and schedules. The gateway lets you message Hermes from Telegram and runs scheduled jobs, but only while it is running on a computer that stays on. Scheduled jobs that hit a dangerous command are blocked by default.

• You gain: you can send jobs from anywhere and get results, such as a morning summary, without sitting at the computer.
• You risk: if you approve a pairing code you did not ask for, or set GATEWAY_ALLOW_ALL_USERS, a stranger can give your agent orders. A scheduled job also runs with nobody watching while the computer is left on.
• Makes sense when: your first jobs have worked, and an allow list holds just your own account through TELEGRAM_ALLOWED_USERS or a pairing code you asked for. Keep scheduled jobs to reading and writing their own notes, and leave dangerous commands blocked.

For the three questions behind this advice, see Safety versus capability.

Sources

Research in this repo:

• Hermes raw notes
• First-hour safety checklist

Official Hermes pages (checked 14 November 2026):

• Security and approvals: https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/user-guide/security
• Configuration: https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/user-guide/configuration
• Skills: https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/user-guide/features/skills
• Messaging: https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/user-guide/messaging
• Telegram (finding your user ID with @userinfobot, Create with QR): https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/user-guide/messaging/telegram
• WhatsApp: https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/user-guide/messaging/whatsapp
• Scheduled jobs: https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/user-guide/features/cron
• Nous Portal: https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/integrations/nous-portal

Next

Continue to Nine jobs for Hermes.