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Get stock Hermes Agent — Nous Research’s open-source (MIT) personal agent, and the #1 app on OpenRouter — driving open-weight models against Tensormesh in about 5 minutes. Hermes treats custom OpenAI-compatible endpoints as first-class providers — and that’s exactly what Tensormesh serves at https://serverless.tensormesh.ai/v1. No proxy, no code changes — install, answer the setup wizard once, and chat. Every model in the supported models table passes the full Hermes flow (chat + tool use); deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4-Flash is the recommended default.

Sign up / Log in

Create your Tensormesh account with Google or GitHub.

Get an API key

Generate an ak-... key under Profile → API keys.

Install Hermes Agent

curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash

Supported models

Matrix of Hermes-ready models on Tensormesh serverless.

Get support

Email saas-support@tensormesh.ai for help.

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TL;DR

Two commands — the first-launch wizard does the rest: 
# Step 1 — install Hermes Agent (macOS/Linux; see Prerequisites for Windows)
curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash

# Step 2 — run it; the wizard opens on first launch
hermes
Answer the wizard like this (full walkthrough in Setup):
  1. How would you like to set up Hermes? → Full setup (not Quick Setup, which wires you to Nous Portal)
  2. Select provider → Custom endpoint (enter URL manually)
  3. API base URL → https://serverless.tensormesh.ai/v1
  4. API key → your ak-... key
  5. API compatibility mode → Chat Completions
  6. Select model → deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4-Flash (the wizard lists every model live from the endpoint)
  7. Context length → leave blank (auto-detected from the endpoint)
  8. Display name → Tensormesh
  9. Everything else (terminal backend, tools, messaging, browser/image/TTS/search providers) → keep defaults / Skip
The wizard drops you into a chat session running on Tensormesh. That’s the whole setup.

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Prerequisites

  • Hermes Agent installed via the install script above (macOS/Linux), iex (irm https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.ps1) (Windows PowerShell), or the git-clone path (./setup-hermes.sh installs uv, creates the venv, and symlinks ~/.local/bin/hermes). Verified against Hermes Agent v0.16.0.
  • A Tensormesh account with an API key (ak-...). Sign up, then visit Profile → API keys.
  • A model with ≥ 64K context. Hermes requires at least 64,000 tokens of context and rejects smaller windows when the agent initializes (the first turn on that model). Every model in the supported models table clears this bar; a few Tensormesh models don’t (see the note below the table).
You do not need a Nous Portal subscription, an OpenRouter key, or any OAuth login. Hermes’s custom-endpoint provider reads the base URL and API key you give it; the Portal/OAuth flows are for Nous-hosted and first-class cloud providers only.
You do not need to run any local infrastructure. Tensormesh serves the OpenAI-compatible /v1/chat/completions wire server-side, so stock hermes pointed at serverless.tensormesh.ai/v1 is the complete setup.

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Supported models

Hermes drives 40+ tools through OpenAI-style tool calling. Every model below passes the full Hermes flow — chat + multi-step tool use — against Tensormesh serverless, verified with Hermes Agent v0.16.0 on the chat-completions wire.
ModelHermes statusNotes
deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4-Flash✓ chat + tool useRecommended default; reasoning + tools, 1M context
openai/gpt-oss-120b✓ chat + tool useReasoning + tools, 128K context
openai/gpt-oss-20b✓ chat + tool useReasoning + tools, 128K context
Qwen/Qwen3-Coder-480B-A35B-Instruct-FP8✓ chat + tool useCoding-tuned, 256K context
Qwen/Qwen3.5-397B-A17B-FP8✓ chat + tool useReasoning + tools, 256K context
Qwen/Qwen3.6-27B-FP8✓ chat + tool useReasoning + tools, 256K context
lukealonso/GLM-5.1-NVFP4-MTP✓ chat + tool useReasoning + tools, 198K context
MiniMaxAI/MiniMax-M2.5✓ chat + tool useReasoning + tools, 192K context
Choosing a default: deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4-Flash combines the largest context window in the catalog (1M tokens) with reasoning support at a very low price — the best model to start with, and the one that keeps long agentic sessions farthest from compaction. openai/gpt-oss-20b is the cheapest model in the catalog; for heavier reasoning, lukealonso/GLM-5.1-NVFP4-MTP and MiniMaxAI/MiniMax-M2.5 are the strongest options; for coding-centric sessions, reach for Qwen/Qwen3-Coder-480B-A35B-Instruct-FP8 (256K). Below Hermes’s 64K minimum (served by Tensormesh, but rejected by Hermes): moonshotai/Kimi-K2.6 (32K), google/gemma-4-31B-it (32K). Hermes lets you select these, then fails on the next turn with Failed to initialize agent: ... below the minimum 64,000 required by Hermes Agent. The error suggests a model.context_length override, but overstating a model’s real window just trades the startup error for mid-session context overruns — not recommended.

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Setup

The wizard path from the TL;DR, with detail on each prompt.
1

Install Hermes Agent

curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash
This installs the hermes command (symlinked into ~/.local/bin). Verify with hermes doctor.
2

Run hermes and complete the first-launch wizard

hermes
The first launch opens the setup wizard. Choose Full setup — Quick Setup runs the Nous Portal OAuth flow and wires Hermes to Nous-hosted models, not Tensormesh. Then:
  • Select provider: Custom endpoint (enter URL manually) — near the bottom of the list, not “custom (direct API)”.
  • API base URL: https://serverless.tensormesh.ai/v1. The wizard probes the endpoint with your key and confirms with Verified endpoint ... (N model(s) visible). If that line errors instead, fix the key before continuing.
  • API key: your ak-... key. Don’t have one? Generate it in your profile.
  • API compatibility mode: Chat Completions.
  • Select model: the wizard lists every model live from the endpoint — pick deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4-Flash, or type any slug from the table.
  • Context length in tokens: leave blank. Auto-detect works against Tensormesh — the endpoint publishes context_length in /v1/models and Hermes resolves it correctly.
  • Display name: Tensormesh (cosmetic — shown in the /model picker and session footers).
  • Remaining sections (terminal backend, tools, messaging platforms, browser/image/TTS/search providers): keep defaults or Skip. The Local terminal backend runs commands on your machine with per-command approval prompts; pick Docker instead if you want container isolation. Hermes’s multimodal tools (vision, image generation, TTS) route to separate auxiliary providers, not your main model — Tensormesh serves text-only models, so those tools have no backend unless you configure auxiliaries; they fail only if invoked.
The wizard persists everything — endpoint, API key, model, and wire mode — to the model: section of ~/.hermes/config.yaml, then drops you into a chat session. Re-run just the provider part anytime with hermes model.

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Manual configuration (alternative)

Use this to script a setup or change an existing install. On a fresh machine, the first hermes launch opens the wizard regardless, so the wizard path above is usually the one you want.
Edit the model: section of ~/.hermes/config.yaml — this is exactly the shape the wizard writes (merge if the section already exists; YAML keys must be unique):
model:
  default: deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4-Flash
  provider: custom
  base_url: https://serverless.tensormesh.ai/v1
  api_key: ak-...
  api_mode: chat_completions
context_length is optional — Hermes resolves each model’s window from the endpoint automatically; set it only to override. The wizard also writes a custom_providers: entry (next tab); add one if you want the endpoint listed by name in the /model picker.

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Usage

hermes              # Interactive TUI — start a conversation
hermes model        # Provider/model setup wizard (add or change endpoints)
hermes tools        # Configure which of the 40+ tools are enabled
hermes doctor       # Diagnose installation and configuration issues
hermes update       # Update to the latest version

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Switching models

Two different surfaces, easy to confuse:
  • hermes model (terminal, outside a session) — the full wizard. Use it to add providers, enter keys, and configure custom endpoints.
  • /model (inside a chat session) — switches between models you’ve already configured. Bare /model opens an interactive picker — the Tensormesh endpoint appears under its display name with all models live-fetched from /v1/models. Or pass the slug directly:
/model Qwen/Qwen3-Coder-480B-A35B-Instruct-FP8  # coding-tuned, 256K
/model lukealonso/GLM-5.1-NVFP4-MTP             # GLM 5.1, 198K
/model                                           # interactive picker
Mid-session switches are session-only — append --global to persist the new default to config.yaml (Hermes prints a reminder either way). Hermes re-resolves the model’s context window from the endpoint on each switch, and conversation history, memory, and skills carry over. (The custom:-prefixed forms in Hermes’s own docs also work; Hermes auto-corrects them to the bare slug.)

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Command approval

Hermes prompts before executing shell commands by default, with an allowlist for patterns you approve permanently. Keep the default prompting behavior for unfamiliar tasks; manage the allowlist via Hermes’s security settings rather than disabling approval globally.

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Hermes Desktop

Hermes Desktop (macOS, Windows, Linux) is a native app built around the same agent as the CLI — same ~/.hermes/config.yaml, same API keys, sessions, and skills. If you’ve completed the Setup above, Tensormesh is already configured when you install the app — nothing extra to do. Verified against Desktop v0.16.0.
  • Switch models from the selector at the bottom-right of the chat window, or manage the endpoint under Settings → Providers — the app surfaces the same Tensormesh models the CLI sees.
  • Installing Desktop first, without the CLI setup? Configure Tensormesh per Setup — Desktop reads and writes the same config file, so either surface works.

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Troubleshooting

SymptomLikely causeFix
command not found: hermes~/.local/bin not on PATH, or install incompleteRe-run the install script; ensure export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH" is in your shell rc.
Failed to initialize agent: Model <slug> has a context window of N tokens, which is below the minimum 64,000 required by Hermes AgentModel window below Hermes’s 64K floor (enforced on the first turn, not at selection time)Pick a ≥ 64K model from the table. The suggested model.context_length override works but invites mid-session context overruns.
HTTP 500 from the endpoint on every requestMost often an invalid API key — Tensormesh surfaces auth failures as 5xxProbe with a request that exercises auth (/v1/models is public, so it can’t validate a key): curl -sS -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer <your ak-... key>" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"model":"deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4-Flash","max_tokens":5,"messages":[{"role":"user","content":"hi"}]}' https://serverless.tensormesh.ai/v1/chat/completions — HTTP 500 means the key is bad; generate a fresh one.
Model not foundWrong model slugCheck spelling against the table — slugs are case-sensitive.
Tool calls loop or come back malformedModel-specific tool-calling qualitySwitch to openai/gpt-oss-120b (a known-good baseline); if it persists there, report it to us.
Still stuck? Run hermes doctor, then email saas-support@tensormesh.ai with the doctor output and the failing model slug.

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Rollback / uninstall

To remove Tensormesh from your Hermes setup:
  1. Run hermes model and select a different provider, or delete the Tensormesh model: block from ~/.hermes/config.yaml.
  2. Delete the custom_providers: entry named Tensormesh as well — your API key is stored in both places. (If you swapped in key_env, also unset TENSORMESH_INFERENCE_API_KEY.)
Hermes itself is untouched — it falls back to whatever provider you select next.