This is a submission for the Hermes Agent Challenge
No server. No cloud bill. Just a phone, Termux, and an AI agent that ships code.
When I first heard about Hermes Agent, the open-source agentic framework from Nous Research, I did what any reasonable developer would do: I tried installing it on my laptop. It worked. Then I asked myself — what if I could run it on my phone, always on, always ready?
Turns out you can. And it is surprisingly practical.
The Setup: Android + Termux
Termux gives you a functional Linux environment on Android. With it, you get bash, Python, Node.js, git — everything you need. Installing Hermes Agent is a one-liner:
pkg install python git
pip install hermes-agent
hermes setup
The setup wizard walks you through picking a provider (I use DeepSeek), configuring tools, and connecting messaging platforms. Within 10 minutes, I had a fully operational AI agent running on a Samsung phone.
Why Run an Agent on Your Phone?
Three reasons:
- Always-on. Your phone is already on 24/7. No separate device, no VPS, no cloud bill.
- Messaging-native. Hermes Agent connects to Telegram natively — you interact with it like a contact. Wake up, check your messages, ask your agent what happened overnight.
- Capable. Despite running on ARM64 with limited RAM, Hermes performs real agentic work: multi-step reasoning, tool orchestration, file manipulation, git operations, web search, and cron scheduling.
How an AI Agent Let Me Work on an Entire GitHub Portfolio — From My Phone
This is where Hermes Agent truly shines. Over the past weeks, I built and deployed an entire professional portfolio site — portfolio design, HTML/CSS edits, Git versioning, GitHub Pages deployment, README documentation, and even a separate open-source project — all through my agent, without touching a laptop.
The agent did not just execute commands. It owned the workflow:
-
Repository creation —
gh repo create, initialize, push to main -
Content edits — semantic find-and-replace via the
patchtool, not fragile line numbers - Commits — meaningful commit messages in French and English, contextual to the change
- Deployment — push to main → GitHub Pages auto-deploys. Live in seconds.
-
Cross-repo work — jumping between
atlasnexusops.github.io(portfolio) andhermes-bounty-watcher(tool project) without losing context
The agent maintained persistent memory of the repo structure, file paths, and even my stylistic preferences ("use purple gradients, not green"). It remembered that I prefer French commit messages for the portfolio and English for open-source repos. That is something no CLI can do.
A real session: from idea to live site in minutes
Me: Remplace bot par IA agentique professionnelle dans le portfolio
Hermes: [searches for bot across the repo, finds line 223 in index.html, patches the exact string, commits with "Remplace bot par IA agentique professionnelle", pushes to main]
Hermes: Fait. C est en ligne.
Zero copy-paste. Zero SSH. Zero context switching. The agent had persistent knowledge of the repo structure, found the exact string, applied a semantic patch (not fragile line numbers), committed with a meaningful bilingual message, and pushed to main. GitHub Pages deployed within seconds.
Later that same session:
Me: Maintenant on supprime les coordonnees du footer et tu peux mettre mon nom en footer Alexandre Lasly
Hermes: [navigates to footer section, removes contact links, adds name, commits, pushes]
Hermes: Fait.
The whole GitHub surface area
Over multiple sessions, the agent managed:
| Action | Tool |
|---|---|
| Create repo + push |
terminal (gh CLI) |
| Edit HTML/CSS |
patch (semantic replace) |
| Write new files | write_file |
| Search codebase |
search_files (ripgrep) |
| Read with context |
read_file (paginated) |
| Git commit + push |
terminal (git) |
| Schedule cron jobs | cronjob |
| Deliver updates |
send_message (Telegram) |
| Remember preferences | memory |
Every GitHub operation — from init to deploy — went through the agent. No laptop. No IDE. Just Telegram messages on a phone.
Cron: The Secret Weapon
Hermes Agent is cron system deserves special attention. You define a job once, and it runs on schedule — fully autonomous:
hermes cron add "every 6h" \
--script ~/.hermes/scripts/superteam_bounties.sh \
--no-agent \
--deliver origin
The --no-agent flag means the script runs directly (zero LLM tokens) and its stdout is delivered verbatim. Silent when there is nothing to report.
Lessons Learned
- Memory is underrated. Hermes Agent is persistent memory means it remembers your preferences, project structure, and past fixes.
- Skills are living documentation. When you solve a complex workflow, save it as a skill.
- No-agent crons are efficient. For repetitive data collection, skip the LLM entirely.
- The phone is not a toy. An Android phone becomes a production-grade AI workstation.
- Agents own workflows, not just commands. The difference between a CLI wrapper and an agent is memory, planning, and context retention across sessions.
Try It Yourself
pkg install python git -y
pip install hermes-agent
hermes setup
Connect a Telegram bot, schedule a cron, send a message — you will have an AI co-worker in your pocket within the hour.
Hermes Agent is open source. Runs anywhere you can install Python — including the phone in your hand right now.
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