molecule-core/docs/adapters/hermes-adapter-design.md

Hermes Adapter — Shell Design Spec

Perspective: DevOps Engineer + Backend Engineer
Status: Draft — pre-implementation
Hermes source: NousResearch/hermes-agent (~61k ⭐)
Adapter runtime key: hermes

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1. Files Under workspace-template/adapters/hermes/

File	Purpose
Dockerfile	Extends workspace-template:base; installs hermes-agent Python SDK and its deps via pip at image build time
requirements.txt	Python package list — at minimum hermes-agent; pin to a specific release tag for reproducibility
adapter.py	HermesAdapter(BaseAdapter) — implements name(), display_name(), description(), get_config_schema(), setup(), create_executor(); delegates to _common_setup() for plugins/skills/tools
__init__.py	Exports Adapter = HermesAdapter — required by the adapter autodiscovery loader in workspace-template/adapters/__init__.py

Dockerfile sketch (no implementation — shape only)

FROM workspace-template:base
COPY adapters/hermes/requirements.txt /tmp/hermes-requirements.txt
RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r /tmp/hermes-requirements.txt

adapter.py shape

class HermesAdapter(BaseAdapter):
    @staticmethod
    def name() -> str:
        return "hermes"

    async def setup(self, config: AdapterConfig) -> None:
        # validate NOUS_API_KEY or OPENROUTER_API_KEY is set
        # call self._common_setup(config) for plugins/skills/tools
        ...

    async def create_executor(self, config: AdapterConfig) -> AgentExecutor:
        # wrap Hermes SDK session as an A2A AgentExecutor
        ...

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2. Platform-Side Changes

platform/internal/provisioner/provisioner.go — RuntimeImages map

Add one entry to the existing map:

var RuntimeImages = map[string]string{
    // ... existing entries ...
    "hermes": "workspace-template:hermes",   // ← ADD THIS
}

No other platform Go changes are required for the minimal adapter shell. The runtime column in the workspaces table is a free-form string; no enum migration needed.

workspace-template/build-all.sh

Add hermes to the adapter build loop so build-all.sh (and the build-all.sh claude-code-style single-runtime path) includes it:

ADAPTERS=(langgraph claude_code openclaw deepagents crewai autogen hermes)

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3. Required Environment Variables

Name	Required	Description
NOUS_API_KEY	Required (unless OPENROUTER_API_KEY set)	Nous Research Portal API key — primary model provider for Hermes; obtain from nousresearch.com
OPENROUTER_API_KEY	Optional	Fallback provider; lets operators use any Hermes-supported model via OpenRouter instead of Nous Portal
HERMES_MODEL	Optional	Model identifier (e.g. nous-hermes-3, openrouter:anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5); adapter defaults to nous-hermes-3 if unset
HERMES_SKILLS_DIR	Optional	Path inside the container where Hermes looks for skills; defaults to /configs/skills — consistent with the Claude Code and DeepAgents adapters

Note: NOUS_API_KEY and OPENROUTER_API_KEY must be set as workspace secrets via POST /workspaces/:id/secrets, not baked into the image. At least one of the two must be present at container start; setup() should raise RuntimeError early with a clear message if both are absent.

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4. Smallest Viable Adapter — Scope Constraints

This spec covers the shell only — the minimum to make a Hermes workspace provision, boot, and accept A2A messages:

• No Hermes learning loop (skill self-improvement) in v1 — that requires persistent storage writes outside /configs; defer to a follow-up PR.
• No multi-messenger gateway integration — Hermes's Telegram/Discord/Slack channels are separate from Molecule AI's /channels feature; map these later via the channels adapter.
• No FTS5 memory backend — use Molecule AI's existing commit_memory / search_memory built-in tools for v1; Hermes-native memory can be layered in a subsequent PR.
• The executor wraps one Hermes agent session per workspace, matching the 1:1 workspace→agent model used by all other adapters.