# hermes-agent v2026.8.31 — Hermes Agent v0.21.0 (v2026.8.31)

- Product: hermes-agent (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/hermes-agent)
- Vendor: NousResearch
- Date: 2026-08-31
- Version: v2026.8.31
- Original notes: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/releases/tag/v2026.8.31
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/hermes-agent/releases/v2026.8.31

What's New is an index, not a publisher: every entry below links to the vendor's own release notes, which are the authoritative source. Entries are labelled where they are hand-curated sample data, pre-releases, or drawn from a secondary source such as a developer blog.

Reuse: the summaries, labels and curation here are © What's New. Quote freely with attribution and a link back; wholesale republication of the corpus is not permitted — terms: https://whatsnew.fyi/terms. The vendors' own release notes remain their publishers'.

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- **added** — Bot Mode is now bundled and default-on in the desktop app, featuring named agent profiles with deterministic avatar faces, shared roster, group chats, and @-mention support
- **added** — hermes peer command enables bot-to-bot DMs between agents across profiles and gateways from the CLI or within conversations
- **added** — Cron jobs now load and update persistent memory with continuity mode to carry each run's output into the next
- **added** — Monitor-mode cron jobs skip the LLM entirely when nothing changed
- **added** — Cron job output can land in a bot's canonical Bot Chat where the bot responds
- **added** — Cron jobs gain durable notepad scratchpad for each execution
- **added** — Subagents can be steered mid-flight with course corrections and early stopping while retaining partial results
- **added** — Optional JSON-schema validation for child outputs in delegation
- **added** — Per-delegation cost is now surfaced in delegation results
- **added** — Delegation defaults increased to 250 iterations and 10 concurrent children
- **added** — MCP servers and catalog merged into one coherent desktop page with drag-in import and background health checks
- **added** — Fleet cost and usage overlay for MCP servers showing schema token estimates and 30-day usage
- **added** — hermes:// deep links enable MCP server installation with explicit confirmation
- **added** — Ctrl+P opens fuzzy command palette in CLI
- **added** — /model picker filters as you type
- **added** — /status command displays reasoning mode, pending approvals, and context usage
- **added** — Status bar can display live cache-hit percentage, latency, and tokens/sec with per-field toggles
- **added** — Global emergency stop control added
- **added** — Session pin and unpin functionality
- **added** — Terminal pets companion feature added to CLI

#### Hermes Agent v0.21.0 (v2026.8.31)

**Release Date:** August 31, 2026
**Since v0.20.0:** ~5,800 commits · ~2,475 merged PRs · ~5,680 files changed · ~869,000 insertions · ~135,000 deletions · **~2,100 issues closed** · 760+ contributors

> **The Pantheon Release.** v0.20.0 made Hermes the herald — he spoke, and he carried word to other agents. In v0.21.0 the gods assemble. Bot Mode ships built into the desktop app: a society of named agents with their own faces and group chats, where your bots talk to each other — and to you — like a team, not a toolbox. Around that spine: cron jobs gained memory and continuity so scheduled agents actually learn between runs, subagents can be steered live mid-flight, the MCP surface became a real command center, and the agent can now drive the desktop's own browser. This release rolls up everything from the v0.20.1–v0.20.6 infrastructure patch tags — those windows are fully documented here.

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##### ✨ Highlights

- **Bot Mode — your agents become a society, built in** — Bot Mode is now a bundled, default-on part of the desktop app: every agent profile gets a name, a deterministic avatar face (with randomize/lock controls), and a place in a shared roster. Create Discord-style group chats where multiple bots and you talk in one room, @-mention any bot from the composer, and give rooms names and pictures. Before, "multi-agent" meant plumbing; now it looks like a chat app full of coworkers. ([#87886](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/87886), [#88243](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/88243), [#89386](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/89386), [#96726](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/96726) — @teknium1, @OutThisLife, @dokterdok)

- **`hermes peer` — bot-to-bot DMs between your agents** — Any Hermes agent can now message any other by handle, across profiles and gateways, from the CLI or from inside a conversation. Ask your research bot to hand findings to your coding bot and get the reply back where you can read it. Replies land in each agent's canonical Bot Chat, so conversations between agents are durable and inspectable, not fire-and-forget. ([#88725](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/88725), [#88178](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/88178), [#91487](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/91487) — @teknium1)

- **Cron jobs that remember** — Scheduled jobs stopped being goldfish. Cron agents now load and update persistent memory like every other agent, `continuity=true` carries each run's output into the next (so a monitor can dedupe against what it already reported), every job gets a durable notepad scratchpad, monitor-mode jobs skip the LLM entirely when nothing changed, and cron output can land in a bot's canonical Bot Chat — where the bot actually responds. Your 9am briefing job now knows what it told you yesterday. ([#91447](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/91447), [#80774](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/80774), [#81139](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/81139), [#81138](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/81138), [#91487](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/91487) — @teknium1, @smwbev)

- **Steer your subagents while they run** — `delegate_task` gained live orchestration: list running children, steer one mid-flight with a course correction, or stop it early and keep the partial result. Add optional JSON-schema validation on child outputs, per-delegation cost surfaced in results, and raised defaults (250 iterations, 10 concurrent children) — delegation went from fire-and-pray to actually managed parallel work. ([#85232](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/85232), [#81144](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/81144), [#81142](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/81142), [#86506](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/86506), [#86745](https://github.co

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