Hermes Agent Backup: Don't Lose Weeks Of Agent Work

A Hermes Agent backup is a saved copy of everything your agent has become, which means its persona, its skills, its memory, its chat history and its scheduled jobs.

Hermes Agent is the free, open-source agent from Nous Research, and it has two built-in backup commands: hermes backup for the whole install and hermes profile export for one agent.

The first one keeps your API keys inside the file, and the second one deliberately strips them out.

This page is the business version.

I'll explain what a backup holds first, and then I'll walk through the six situations where a business owner, an agency or a creator actually needs one.

I'm not going to promise you any income from a backup, because a backup doesn't make money.

It stops you losing the weeks you already spent.

What A Hermes Agent Backup Holds

Everything Hermes knows about your business sits in one folder on your machine, called ~/.hermes.

The official docs list the contents, and I've grouped them by what they mean to a business.

Part of the agent	Where it lives	Why it matters to you
The persona	SOUL.md	It decides how the agent talks to you and your customers.
The skills	skills/	They are the repeatable jobs you taught it, such as writing in your tone.
The memory	memories/	It holds the facts the agent knows about you and your business.
The history	sessions/ and state.db	They hold every past conversation the agent can search.
The schedule	cron/	It holds the jobs that run while you sleep.
The settings	config.yaml and plugins/	They hold your model choice, tools and installed plugins.
The keys	.env and auth.json	They are the API keys and logins that cost real money if leaked.
Extra agents	profiles/<name>/	Each named profile is a separate agent with its own copy of all of the above.

I'm describing the documented layout and not showing you my own files, because mine contain client information.

The memory is the part you cannot rebuild.

You can retype a persona and reinstall a skill, but the memory came from months of real work together.

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The Two Commands In Plain English

The official Hermes FAQ compares the two tools, and here is the short version.

Question	hermes backup	hermes profile export
What does it save?	It saves the whole install, including every profile.	It saves one agent.
Are my keys inside?	Yes, they are inside.	No, they are always left out.
Who is it for?	It is for you and nobody else.	It is for a teammate, a client or a second machine.
How do I put it back?	You run hermes import with the file.	You run hermes profile import with the file.

I have run the export and import myself, and I wrote up that run in my portable Hermes agents guide.

One of my profiles packed down to a 2.2 MB file holding 712 files, and there were zero credential files inside it.

The full-backup details on this page come from the official docs and the CLI help on v0.21.4.

Use Case 1: The Solo Creator Whose Laptop Dies

This is the most common story, and it is the one a backup exists for.

A creator spends a month teaching Hermes their voice, their content calendar and their research routine.

The laptop then gets stolen or the drive fails.

Without a backup, every bit of that work is gone.

With a backup, the fix is four commands.

curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash
hermes import ~/hermes-backup-<timestamp>.zip
hermes setup
hermes cron list

The first line installs Hermes on the new laptop.

The second restores the backup, the third checks that your keys still work, and the fourth confirms your scheduled jobs came back.

The only requirement is that the zip lived somewhere other than the dead laptop.

Making the zip in the first place is one command.

hermes backup

The docs say it lands in your home folder as hermes-backup-<timestamp>.zip, and that it is safe to run while Hermes is working.

Use Case 2: The Agency Moving An Agent To An Always-On Server

Many people start Hermes on a Mac and then want it running all night on a server.

The official FAQ describes this exact move, from a personal machine to a dedicated Linux box.

1. Install Hermes on the server with the official install script.
2. Run hermes backup on the Mac.
3. Copy the zip to the server over SSH with scp.
4. Run hermes import on the server.
5. Run hermes setup on the server to verify keys and providers.

There are three things I'd watch in a business setting.

The zip contains your API keys, so it should only travel over an encrypted connection.

The docs say you may need to update paths or sign in to providers again, because a folder path on a Mac will not exist on Linux.

Your scheduled jobs travel inside the backup, so both machines will try to run them if both stay switched on.

The CLI has hermes pause, which the help text describes as an emergency stop for cron dispatch and new gateway turns, and I'd run it on the old machine after the move.

If you haven't chosen a server, my best Hermes Agent VPS guide covers the options and what they cost.

The Hermes Agent backend guide explains where the agent's commands actually run once it is on a server.

🔥 Want to see how I run agents across a Mac, a server and a phone? Inside the AI Profit Boardroom, I've got step-by-step videos on the full Agent OS setup, plus the installable Agent OS itself. You also get four coaching calls a week with 3,400+ members. → Get access here

Use Case 3: Handing An Agent To A Team Member

This is where the second command earns its place.

Say you built a research agent that works well and you want your assistant to run the same one.

You don't want to send them your API keys.

hermes profile export research-bot -o ~/research-bot.tar.gz

The docs say auth.json and .env are always excluded from an export.

Your assistant then runs one command and adds their own keys.

hermes profile import ~/research-bot.tar.gz --name research-bot

You can also type /export and /import inside a Hermes chat, and the docs say the desktop app has both under ⌘K.

There is one check I'd never skip.

The docs warn that an export is a snapshot of your profile and not a cleaned-up release.

It can include your memories, your past sessions and your user profile file, and nothing scans those for personal details.

List the contents before you send it.

tar -tzf ~/research-bot.tar.gz | less

Use Case 4: Delivering An Agent To A Client

A client handover needs more care than a team handover.

You don't want your own chat history or another client's details travelling with the agent.

The docs describe a second route for this, called a profile distribution.

A distribution publishes the agent as a git repository, and the client installs it with one command.

hermes profile install github.com/you/client-agent --alias

The docs say a distribution carries the persona, config, skills, scheduled jobs and tool connections.

The docs also say it never ships credentials, memories or sessions.

That makes it the cleaner choice when the receiver is outside your business.

When you improve the agent later, the client pulls the new version and keeps their own memory.

hermes profile update client-agent

There is one trap the docs call out.

Hermes does not control git, so those exclusions are applied by the installer and not when you commit files yourself.

Check that no key file is in the repository before you push it.

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Use Case 5: Protecting Yourself Before An Update

Hermes ships updates often, and an update is the most likely moment for something to break.

The updating docs say hermes update takes a quick snapshot of key state files for every profile before it changes anything.

For a business-critical agent I'd go one step further.

hermes update --backup

That forces a full backup zip before the update.

The docs show a config setting that makes the full backup the default for every update.

updates:
  pre_update_backup: full

If an update goes wrong, the docs describe three layers of recovery.

• Hermes checks its critical files after an update and rolls the code back automatically if they fail to load.
• The /snapshot command inside a Hermes terminal session lists your state snapshots, and /snapshot restore <id> reverts to one.
• A full backup zip can be restored with hermes import.

The docs add an honest caveat.

Rolling back the code is not the same as rolling back your data, because a newer version can change your files in ways an older version cannot read.

That is why the backup from before the update matters.

Use Case 6: Keeping A Shared Memory Vault Safe

I run Hermes with an Obsidian vault as a shared second brain, and I explain that setup in my best Hermes Agent memory guide.

The vault is where my real business knowledge lives.

It is also the thing a Hermes backup does not cover.

A vault is a normal folder outside ~/.hermes, so neither backup command touches it.

The built-in memory files are inside the Hermes backup, and the vault needs its own.

Because a vault is plain text, a private git repository works well.

cd /path/to/your/vault
git init
git add .
git commit -m "Vault snapshot"

The same idea works for your skills folder, which gives you a history of every change to every skill.

cd ~/.hermes/skills
git init
git add .
git commit -m "Skills snapshot"

Keep both repositories private, and never commit a key file.

The CLI help also lists hermes sync, called Skill Sync, which moves your own skills between your devices.

A Weekly Hermes Agent Backup Routine For A Business

This is the routine I'd give any business that relies on an agent.

When	What to do	Command
Every week, automatically	Take a full backup and keep the newest eight.	hermes backup -o ~/hermes-backups/ -k 8
Every week, by hand	Copy the newest zip to a second location.	You copy the file to an encrypted drive.
Before every update	Force a full pre-update backup.	hermes update --backup
Before sharing an agent	Export the profile and read the file list.	hermes profile export <name>
Once a month	Restore a backup somewhere and test it.	hermes import <zip> on a spare machine
After any vault change that matters	Commit the vault.	git commit in the vault folder

The CLI help says -k keeps the newest N backups in the output folder and deletes older ones, with a default of 3.

You can put the weekly line into your system's scheduler so nobody has to remember it.

0 3 * * 0 /full/path/to/hermes backup -o "$HOME/hermes-backups/" -k 8

Run which hermes to find the full path for that line.

The docs say an incomplete backup exits with an error and skips the clean-up, so a bad run never deletes your last good archive.

What A Backup Deliberately Leaves Out

Knowing the gaps matters as much as knowing the contents.

• A profile export leaves out your API keys and logins on purpose, so the receiver signs in with their own.
• A full backup leaves out the Hermes program itself, so you reinstall it first.
• A full backup leaves out downloaded local models and runtimes, so you download those again.
• A full backup leaves out browser profiles, caches, checkpoints and earlier backups.
• Neither command includes an Obsidian vault or any other folder outside the Hermes home.

The full backup does include your keys.

Treat that zip the way you'd treat a file of passwords.

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The Restore Test Checklist

A backup only counts once you have restored it.

I'd run this list once a month.

• Run hermes --version to confirm Hermes starts.
• Run hermes doctor to check for configuration problems.
• Run hermes profile list to confirm every agent arrived.
• Run hermes skills list to confirm your skills arrived.
• Run hermes cron list to confirm your scheduled jobs arrived.
• Run hermes sessions list to confirm your history arrived.
• Run hermes setup to confirm your keys and providers work.
• Ask the agent one real question and check that the answer uses what it knows about you.

If you are installing Hermes for the first time on a Mac, my Hermes Agent brew guide covers the install options before you import anything.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Hermes Agent backup?

It is a saved copy of the Hermes home folder, which holds your settings, persona, skills, memory, sessions, scheduled jobs and profiles.

You create one with hermes backup, or with hermes profile export for a single agent.

Can I safely send a Hermes agent to a team member or client?

Use hermes profile export, because it always leaves out the credential files.

Check the archive first, because it can still contain memories and past sessions.

How often should a business back up Hermes Agent?

I'd run a full backup every week on a schedule and before every update.

Hermes also takes a quick snapshot automatically before each update.

Where should I store a Hermes Agent backup?

Keep one copy on the machine and at least one copy somewhere else.

The full backup contains your keys, so store it somewhere encrypted and never in a shared folder.

Does a Hermes backup cover my Obsidian vault?

No, because the vault is a separate folder outside the Hermes home.

Back it up on its own.

Also On Our Network

• 🌐 The command-by-command Hermes backup and migration walkthrough
• 🌐 Each Hermes backup method scored with a verdict
• 🌐 The quick-start for backing up a Hermes Agent OS
• 🌐 Which models to pair with Hermes after you restore it

📺 Video notes + links to the tools 👉

🎥 Learn how I make these videos 👉

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About Julian

I'm Julian Goldie, an SEO entrepreneur, author and founder of the AI Profit Boardroom, which has 3,400+ members.

I help business owners scale with AI agents, automation and SEO.

• I've built Goldie Agency into a seven-figure SEO and link building agency.
• I've grown my YouTube channel to 400,000+ subscribers.
• I run GoldieBench, where I score AI models on real one-shot builds.
• I wrote "Link Building Mastery", which is available on Amazon.

→ Get my best AI training inside the AI Profit Boardroom

Set the weekly schedule today, test one restore this month, and your business will never depend on a single laptop again thanks to a Hermes Agent backup.