Hermes Labs is Nous Research's set of experimental Hermes Agent plugins that Nous built but does not support. They began as Hermes features Nous chose not to put in the core, and they install from the plugin catalog in the community tier.

How I'd Use Hermes Labs To Run A Leaner Business

Q: Can a business rely on Hermes Labs plugins?

Only with care. Nous makes no promise of fixes, and a Hermes core update can break a Labs plugin before anyone notices. CI runs each plugin against the current Hermes nightly, so breakage is visible, but you should re-check them after every update.

Q: Can Hermes Labs reply to my customers automatically?

No. Telegram Business Mode drafts a reply for every customer message and sends it to your own DM with Send, Edit and Discard buttons. The README says no auto-send exists, so nothing reaches a customer until you tap Send.

Q: What does Hermes Labs cost?

The plugins are free and the Hermes Labs repo is MIT licensed. Telegram Business Mode needs a Telegram Business subscription on your account, and the parts that call a model use the model you already run in Hermes.

Hermes Labs is Nous Research's collection of experimental Hermes Agent plugins that Nous built but does not support, and this page shows you how a real business would use each one.

There are three Hermes Labs plugins right now, called Inbox, Workflow Record and Telegram Business Mode.

Inbox shows you everything your agent has in flight, Workflow Record teaches Hermes a browser task by watching you do it once, and Telegram Business Mode drafts customer replies that you approve before they're sent.

They're free, they install from the Hermes plugin catalog, and they arrived in the Hermes Agent v0.22.4 release notes on 21 October 2026.

I'm going to explain what Hermes Labs is first, then walk through the business jobs each plugin actually fits.

I haven't run these plugins on video yet, so the facts here come from Nous Research's own release notes and plugin READMEs, and the use cases are how I'd apply them.

The Business Jobs Each Hermes Labs Plugin Fits

This table is the short answer, so you can match a plugin to a job before reading anything else.

Business job	Hermes Labs plugin	How it helps
Checking whether your scheduled agent jobs actually ran	Inbox	It lists failed or paused cron jobs and their error in one view.
Seeing what your agents are working on right now	Inbox	It shows running processes, running delegations and open chat sessions per profile.
Feeding agent status into a client dashboard	Inbox	Its `--json` flag outputs the same snapshot for scripts and dashboards.
Handing a repeated browser task to your agent	Workflow Record	You do the task once, and `/learn` turns the recording into a reusable skill.
Answering customer messages on Telegram faster	Telegram Business Mode	It drafts every reply and waits for your Send tap.
Keeping a human in the loop on customer replies	Telegram Business Mode	It has no auto-send, and only the owner can press its buttons.

Every row there comes from what Nous Research says the plugin does in its own README.

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What Hermes Labs Is, In Plain English

Hermes Labs is a shelf of working plugins that Nous Research wrote but won't maintain.

Nous says these plugins "started as Hermes features we decided not to put in the core."

So rather than delete that work, Nous published it in the Hermes Labs plugins repo so anyone can install it.

The docs site doesn't have a dedicated Hermes Labs page yet, so that repo's README is where Nous defines the term.

The key word in that definition is "unsupported," and it has four practical meanings for a business owner.

Nous makes no promise of fixes, so a bug report may sit.
A core Hermes change can break a Labs plugin before anyone notices.
CI runs every Labs plugin against the current Hermes nightly, so breakage is at least visible.
Each plugin is up for adoption, and Nous will help you move one to your own repo if you want to own it.

Supported first-party plugins live in a different place, the hermes-official-plugins repo.

That's the line I'd draw for any client work, where official plugins can carry real workloads and Labs plugins start as trials.

Who Makes Hermes Labs And What It Costs

Nous Research makes Hermes Labs, the same team behind Hermes Agent itself.

The catalog entries say each Labs plugin is "built by Nous Research, not supported," and they're listed in the community tier.

The repo is MIT licensed, so the plugins themselves cost nothing.

There are two real costs to plan for.

The first is that Telegram Business Mode needs a Telegram Business subscription on your personal Telegram account.

The second is model usage, because Workflow Record's /learn step and Telegram Business drafting both use the model you already run in Hermes.

Inbox calls no model at all, so it adds nothing to your bill.

One naming warning is that a separate GitHub organisation called hermes-labs-ai also has a plugin in the catalog, and its entry says it is "independent of Nous Research."

The Problem Hermes Labs Solves For A Business

Once you run more than one or two agents, the hard part stops being "can the agent do it?" and becomes "did it actually do it?"

Scheduled jobs fail quietly, delegated tasks stall, and you only find out when a client asks where their report is.

Repeated browser tasks also eat staff time, because explaining a 12-click process to an agent in words is slow and error-prone.

Customer messages pile up too, and letting a bot answer customers on its own is a risk most owners won't take.

Hermes Labs gives you one plugin for each of those three problems.

How To Get Hermes Labs Running

You need Hermes Agent first, and the v0.22.4 release notes say a command-line install updates with hermes update.

The Microsoft Store app updates through the Store, and Docker users pull nousresearch/hermes-agent:stable.

Then you install whichever Labs plugins you need with the commands from the Hermes Labs repo.

hermes plugins install inbox
hermes plugins install workflow-record
hermes plugins install hermes-telegram-business

You can also search the catalog with hermes plugins search <term>, or browse it in the Hermes Desktop app.

Telegram Business Mode needs a few extra steps in Telegram, which I cover in its section below.

If you want a full Hermes setup first, my Hermes Agent v0.22 business guide covers what the current release does for a business.

Use Case 1: An Agency Morning Check With Hermes Inbox

Picture an agency that runs a nightly rank report, a weekly content brief and a few research delegations for each client.

Inbox gives the account manager one command that answers "what broke overnight?"

hermes inbox

The "Needs attention" section lists cron jobs whose last run failed, with the error message, plus stalled delegations and blocked kanban tasks.

The "In progress" section shows what is still running, and "Scheduled" shows the next five runs of each enabled job.

If the agency runs a profile per client, the README shows how to check another profile.

hermes -p work inbox

You install the plugin in that profile too for that to work.

Inbox is read-only, so the README says it never writes, repairs or prunes anything it reads.

That makes it safe to hand to a junior team member, because looking can't break anything.

If your agency also runs agent dashboards, my post on Hermes Agent dashboards shows where a status view like this fits.

Use Case 2: Piping Agent Status Into A Client Report

Some clients want proof that the automation they pay for is running.

Inbox has a JSON mode for exactly this kind of job.

hermes inbox --json

The README describes it as "the same snapshot as JSON, for scripts and dashboards."

A simple script could read that output each morning and drop the scheduled-job status into a client update.

Every section that couldn't be read is also named in the JSON's sources field, so a report can say "not read" instead of silently showing nothing.

Use Case 3: Teaching Hermes A Repeated Browser Task

This is the use case I find most interesting for small teams.

Think about the browser tasks your staff repeat every week, like checking an order status, pulling a report from a supplier portal or filling in the same form.

Workflow Record lets you do that task once while Hermes watches.

You start a Chromium browser that Hermes can reach, keep the starting tab in front, and run the recorder.

hermes record --slug shop-login

You do the task, press Ctrl-C, and Hermes saves a JSON recording and prints the exact /learn line to paste into a chat.

/learn then turns that recording into a skill that replays the flow with Hermes's browser tools.

After that, the README says you can use the new skill like any other, for example by asking Hermes to log into the shop and check your order status.

Password, one-time-code and card fields are masked inside the page as {SECRET:name} and never written to the file.

At replay time, logins are filled through Hermes's browser vault or an environment variable you set, so the password never enters the conversation.

If browser automation is new to your team, my Hermes Agent browser guide explains how the browser tools work.

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Use Case 4: A Telegram Secretary That Never Sends On Its Own

If you sell through Telegram, Telegram Business Mode is the Labs plugin built for you.

It connects your Telegram Business account to your Hermes bot and drafts a reply to every customer message.

Each draft lands in your own DM with three buttons, which are Send, Edit and Discard.

Send delivers it to the customer through your Business connection, Edit lets you type the message you'd rather send, and Discard drops it.

The README is very clear that "no auto-send exists," so a human approves every single reply.

Here's how a freelance photographer, a coach or a small shop would set it up.

They install the plugin with hermes plugins install hermes-telegram-business and run hermes gateway restart.
They open @BotFather, pick their bot and enable Business Mode.
They go to Telegram's Settings, then Business, then Chatbots, and add the bot to the chats it should see.
They allow it to reply on their behalf, which is what makes the Send button appear.
They message the bot /biz to confirm the connection is live.

The optional config even includes an owner_persona field, and the README's own example is a freelance photographer who wants friendly, brief replies that suggest a next step.

Owners can pause all drafting with /biz pause and mute one customer chat with /biz off <chat_id>.

Drafts expire after 24 hours by default, and a burst of customer messages within eight seconds becomes a single draft.

Use Case 5: Running Experiments Without Risking Client Work

The honest business use of Hermes Labs is as a sandbox for trying ideas.

Because Nous won't promise fixes, I'd never make a client deliverable depend on a Labs plugin without a fallback.

What I would do is trial a Labs plugin on an internal profile, see if it saves real time for a few weeks, and only then roll it out.

Before experimenting, take a backup, and my Hermes Agent backup guide shows the commands.

The Limits A Business Owner Should Know

These limits come straight from the plugin READMEs, and they're worth reading before you promise anything to a client.

Plugin	Limit	Why it matters for a business
All three	There is no promise of fixes, and core updates can break them.	You should re-check them after every Hermes update.
Inbox	It doesn't show pending approvals or clarify prompts.	Someone still has to answer those in the chat that raised them.
Workflow Record	It records only the one tab in front, and pop-ups stop the recording.	Multi-tab workflows need splitting into smaller ones.
Workflow Record	Only password-like fields are masked.	An API key typed into a plain text field is recorded as typed, so review recordings before sharing them.
Workflow Record	It works with Chromium browsers only.	Firefox and Safari users need the `--manual` mode.
Telegram Business	Version 1 is text only, with no conversation history per draft.	Complex customer threads still need your Edit button.

If you want a second opinion on which of these fits your agency's workflow, you can book a free SEO strategy session with my team.

🔥 Want help deciding which Hermes plugins are worth it for your business? The AI Profit Boardroom has Hermes Agent training, the Agent OS and four weekly coaching calls where you can ask me what to switch on first. → Join the AI Profit Boardroom

Also On Our Network

FAQ: Hermes Labs For Business

What is Hermes Labs?

Hermes Labs is Nous Research's set of experimental Hermes Agent plugins that Nous built but does not support.

Can a business rely on Hermes Labs plugins?

You can use them, but you should re-check them after every Hermes update, because Nous makes no promise of fixes.

Can Hermes Labs reply to my customers automatically?

No, it can't, because Telegram Business Mode only drafts replies and waits for you to tap Send.

What does Hermes Labs cost?

The plugins are free and MIT licensed, while Telegram Business Mode needs a Telegram Business subscription and model calls use the model you already run.

Which Hermes Labs plugin should a small business start with?

Inbox is the easiest start, because it only reads your Hermes state and never writes to it.

If you're building an agency around AI agents and want a plan for it, book a free SEO strategy session and we'll map it out together.

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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 a 7-figure SEO and link-building agency, Goldie Agency, with 70+ people in Bangkok.
I've grown a YouTube channel to 400,000+ subscribers.
I wrote the book "Link Building Mastery", which covers nine link building strategies.
I run GoldieBench, where I score AI models on real one-shot builds.

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Start with Inbox for visibility, add Workflow Record for repeated browser tasks and Telegram Business for approved customer replies, and you'll get real business value out of Hermes Labs.