For the past few months, I have been using Hermes Agent. It is a harness that provides a working environment for getting things done with a large language model. With Hermes Agent, I have been able to use an LLM for much more than chat and entrust it with a surprising range of real tasks.
These are some of the things I currently ask it to do.
1. Conducting research
It helps identify new research questions, reviews the relevant literature and available data, and develops study designs and analysis plans. It collects public data, writes code and runs actual analyses. When results emerge, it checks whether the same pattern appears under conditions where no effect should exist and asks agents in different roles to critique the design. I still decide which questions to pursue, whether restricted data should be used, and how the findings should be interpreted and reported.
2. My schedule and morning briefing
It syncs my calendars every day and sends me a morning briefing with what I need from my schedule, the weather and things worth reading. When I leave home for work, it adds traffic information and checks when I should depart for upcoming appointments.
3. Memory and records
Past conversations can be retrieved from long-term memory, but important facts are kept with their sources in a wiki for the LLMs. Memory is for convenience; the wiki is the record. At night, the agent files new notes and maintains the links and indexes.
4. Email and messaging
It reads my email and Slack, discards routine conversation, and extracts only the requests, deadlines, approvals and meeting preparation that require action from me. Useful information goes into a private wiki for the LLMs, while concrete actions become tasks.
5. Running
After a workout, my phone saves the exercise record—a FIT file—to a Dropbox folder shared with Hermes Agent. The LLM then analyzes the actual distance, heart rate, pace, cadence and power, reviews how the session went, and offers advice for the next workout.
6. My home
Through Home Assistant, it manages lights, appliances, speakers and the robot vacuum. On weekday mornings, a favorite radio station starts automatically on the home speakers. If an appliance or the robot vacuum has a problem, an announcement plays over the speakers.
7. This blog
It built this blog. When I ran a different blog in the past, I had to handle every change myself. Here, the LLM manages the underlying system, so I can simply ask when something needs fixing. It also edits my Korean drafts, rewrites selected posts in English, publishes them and shares them on social media. Hermes Agent wrote the first draft of this post as well.
8. Travel
It extracts and manages itineraries from flight and hotel confirmations received by email. As departure approaches, it monitors the status of my flights.
9. Shopping
It does not stop at recommending a product. Once I specify the exact model, color, size and price I want, it keeps checking the actual store page and lets me know when a sale begins.
10. Investing
This is still experimental and not something I would recommend, but I have automated parts of my investing. When predefined conditions are met, it uses the Toss API to place buy and sell orders.
The main reason I delegate these tasks is not simply to save a little time. By taking over the searching, organizing and repeated checking, the agent allows me to focus on more important work at a higher level: choosing research questions, interpreting results, discussing them with colleagues and making the final decisions.