Hermes Agent: The Self-Improving AI That Fixes Its Own Skills

After watching the hype build around Hermes Agent, Adam Aldred finally jumped in -- skipping the earlier OpenClaw wave entirely -- and came away impressed. The standout feature is not what Hermes can do today, but how it improves itself over time.

First Impressions

Hermes integrates with existing Anthropic Mac subscriptions, which removes a common friction point. For anyone already paying for Claude, there is no additional cost to start using Hermes as a daily driver. The setup is smooth and the integration with tools like Obsidian works well out of the box.

The Self-Improving Skills Problem

The real excitement is around how Hermes handles skills. A persistent concern with AI agent skills is that they might not be as good as they could be, or worse, they are wasting context and tokens on inefficient prompts. Hermes addresses this directly: skills created with the Hermes agent proactively attempt to improve themselves over time. They identify inefficiencies in their own output, refine their approach, and produce better results in future sessions.

This is a meaningful shift from the static skill files that most Claude Code users are accustomed to. Instead of writing a skill once and hoping it holds up, Hermes treats skills as living artifacts that evolve with use.

Key Takeaways

• Hermes Agent works with existing Anthropic Mac subscriptions at no extra cost
• The self-improving skill system is the standout feature, proactively optimizing skills over time
• It integrates well with tools like Obsidian for knowledge management workflows
• Hermes skipped the OpenClaw generation entirely and arrived as a more mature alternative

Resources

• Hermes Agent -- Official site by Nous Research
• Hermes Agent GitHub -- Open-source repository
• Hermes Skills Hub -- Available skills and documentation