Hermes Agent HUD UI Setup Guide (Free 2026)

The Hermes agent HUD UI is the new free upgrade that finally turns terminal-only Hermes into something you can actually manage from a browser, and after running it for the last few days I'm convinced this is the missing layer most Hermes operators didn't realise they needed. If you've ever tried to chat with your Hermes agents through the terminal and wished you could just see them all at once on a clean dashboard, this is exactly that — for free.

This post walks through what HUD UI actually is, the two-minute setup, every section of the dashboard worth knowing, and how it stacks up against Hermes Workspace which is the main competing free web UI.

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What Hermes Agent HUD UI Actually Is

Hermes HUD is a browser-based "consciousness monitor" for your Hermes agent. Instead of squinting at terminal output and trying to remember which agent is doing what, you get a clean dashboard where every agent, task, and chat session lives in one place.

It's a free open-source project that installs as a Hermes plugin, and the design philosophy is straightforward: take everything you'd normally do through terminal commands and put it on a single screen with proper UI. You can chat with your agents directly in the browser, watch live status as they work, schedule recurring tasks, swap models without restarting, and spot broken agents or expired API keys at a glance.

The standout feature is the chat interface, because the default Hermes dashboard genuinely doesn't have chat at all — you've always had to drop into the terminal for that.

Two-Minute Setup

There are two install paths, and both are genuinely fast.

The first path is to copy the install command from the HUD UI GitHub repo and paste it directly into your terminal. This is the standard way and works the same as installing any Hermes plugin.

The second path is the lazy-but-better one I prefer: just ask Hermes to install it for you. Open Hermes and say "install this and sync it with Hermes" with the install command pasted in. Hermes handles the plugin install itself and confirms when it's ready.

Either way, you're looking at two to three minutes from start to a running HUD UI in your browser.

Watch The Walkthrough

For the broader Hermes context that frames where HUD UI fits in the agent stack, this Hermes walkthrough is the canonical reference.

Every Section Of The Dashboard

The HUD UI dashboard packs a lot in, so here's the tour with the bits worth using and the bits you can ignore.

Chat — the headline feature

The chat panel is the reason most people install HUD UI in the first place. You start a new session, type your message, and chat with your Hermes agent in a proper browser interface instead of the terminal. The UI shows the message status before the response lands, which feels slightly off until you get used to it, but the actual chat experience is significantly cleaner than terminal-based interaction.

This alone fixes the biggest weakness of the default Hermes dashboard, which has no chat capability at all.

Scheduled tasks

The scheduled tasks section lets you create recurring jobs with a name, prompt, and interval. This is where you'd set up things like daily summaries, weekly research runs, or any agent task that needs to fire on a schedule. The UI is clean and you don't have to wrestle with cron syntax to make it work.

For autonomous loops that need to run with completion checking rather than just on a schedule, pair this with Hermes Agent Goals which is the persistent-loop feature that runs until the goal is actually done.

Projects

The projects panel shows your local Hermes projects so you can switch context between them without leaving the browser. Useful if you're running Hermes across multiple codebases or client engagements.

Health diagnostics

The health section is genuinely useful and easy to overlook. It runs feature diagnostics across your Hermes setup and surfaces broken pieces — expired API keys, misconfigured providers, failing gateways. If you've ever spent half an hour debugging why a model isn't responding only to discover an API key needed renewing, this section saves you that pain.

Environment and config

The environment and config panels expose your Hermes configuration in browser form. Most people will rarely touch these, but it's nice to have them visible when you do need to make a change.

Agents

This is where every live agent shows up — and in my testing I had 25+ agents visible at once including Hermes agents, Claude agents, and Codex agents all running concurrently. Being able to see them all in one place rather than scattered across terminal sessions is a big quality-of-life win.

Memory and sessions

The memory and sessions panels let you browse your Hermes memory and active session state. For long-running work where you need to see what context your agent has built up, this is the panel to know.

Plugins

The plugins panel lets you manage all installed Hermes plugins from one place. Useful if you've got a stack of community plugins layered on top of base Hermes.

Models

The models panel shows which model is set as the default and lets you swap it from the dropdown. I'm currently running GPT-5.4 as my default, but you can switch to Claude, Kimi K2.5, MiniMax M2.5, or whatever your provider supports without restarting anything.

Gateways

The gateways panel shows the status of every model provider you've configured. If something's broken — and providers do go down occasionally — this is where you spot it quickly.

Bits you can ignore

The terminal commands, patterns, and correction sections are technically there but I genuinely never use them in normal work. Skip them on your first tour and come back if a specific use case pulls you in.

Best Models To Pair With HUD UI

The model dropdown supports anything Hermes does, but a few worth knowing for different use cases.

For coding work, Claude is still the best. Sonnet 4.8 in particular sits at the top of my stack — see Sonnet 4.8 Review for the full benchmark breakdown. If Claude is too expensive for your use case, Kimi K2.5 and MiniMax M2.5 are the cheaper alternatives that still do well on agent work. There's also a free option called "our alpha" that's currently in beta on OpenRouter if you want zero-cost token use while testing.

For most pro use, I'd run Sonnet 4.8 as the default and drop down to cheaper models for high-volume triage tasks.

HUD UI Vs Hermes Workspace

Both are free open-source web UIs for Hermes, and the honest comparison matters because picking the right one saves you setup time.

HUD UI strengths

The HUD UI dashboard is feature-dense and exposes every part of your Hermes stack in one screen. The chat is solid, the health diagnostics are genuinely useful, and the model dropdown is fast. If you want maximum visibility into what's happening across your entire Hermes setup, HUD UI gives you that.

Hermes Workspace strengths

Hermes Workspace has a cleaner UI overall, easier daily use, and ships with the Swarms feature for multi-agent orchestration that HUD UI doesn't have natively. For pure usability and multi-agent work, Workspace edges ahead.

My pick

I run Hermes Workspace as my daily driver because the Swarms feature matters for the multi-agent work I do. HUD UI sits alongside it as a secondary tool when I need the deeper diagnostics view. Most pros end up running both eventually.

For the multi-agent side specifically, Hermes Agent Swarm covers how I think about coordinated agent workflows.

Common Setup Mistakes

Three mistakes I've seen people make in their first hour with HUD UI.

The first is trying to install both HUD UI and Hermes Workspace simultaneously without checking for port conflicts. Both run locally and can compete for the same ports if you don't configure them. Install one at a time and you'll avoid this.

The second is ignoring the health diagnostics panel after install. Half of "why isn't this working" issues are flagged in health, so check it whenever something seems off rather than debugging from scratch.

The third is using HUD UI for tasks that genuinely belong in the terminal. Some things — like quick one-off commands or low-latency interactions — are still faster in the terminal. HUD UI shines for managing multi-agent state and scheduling, not for replacing every interaction.

Cost To Run

HUD UI is free as in genuinely free open-source forever. The only running cost is whatever your underlying model provider charges per token, which depends on your model choice.

If you're running local models via Ollama, the all-in cost is £0 a month for unlimited agent work. If you're running cloud models like Sonnet 4.8 or Gemini 3 Pro, expect £20 to £200 a month depending on usage.

For most solo operators, total stack cost lands at £20 to £50 a month including HUD UI, Hermes itself, and a moderate cloud model budget.

Daily Workflows On HUD UI

Three workflows that genuinely earn HUD UI's place in my stack.

The first is morning agent review. I open HUD UI, scan the agents panel for any that broke overnight, check the health diagnostics for expired keys or down providers, and clear anything that needs clearing before the day starts. Five minutes of upkeep that saves hours of debugging later.

The second is scheduled task management. The schedule panel makes it trivial to spin up new daily or weekly tasks — research runs, content drafts, customer FAQ scans — without writing cron jobs or remembering exact CLI syntax.

The third is mid-day multi-agent coordination. When I'm running 5-10 agents on different parts of a project, the agents panel lets me see everyone's status at once and intervene only where needed. Versus terminal output it's a night-and-day improvement.

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Pairing HUD UI With The Wider Hermes Stack

HUD UI is the visual layer, but the complete Hermes setup needs a few more pieces to genuinely earn its place in your day.

For the agent foundation itself, Hermes AI Agent Framework 2026 covers the core install and skill setup. For autonomous loops where the agent runs until a goal is met, Hermes Agent Goals is the feature to layer on top. For multi-agent orchestration that goes beyond single-agent work, Hermes Agent Swarm covers the patterns. And if you're building a memory layer for the agent to draw on, OMI Obsidian is my preferred second-brain stack.

Together those four pieces plus HUD UI form what I'd call the complete free Hermes stack for solo operators in 2026.

What HUD UI Won't Do

Be honest about the limits.

HUD UI doesn't ship with native multi-agent swarm orchestration the way Hermes Workspace does, so if your work is heavily swarm-based you'll likely want both UIs installed. It also won't replace strategic thinking or architectural decisions about how to structure your agents — those still need you. And it won't make a poorly-set-up Hermes stack work better, so make sure your underlying Hermes install is solid before adding the UI layer on top.

Public Project Status

HUD UI is actively maintained as a free open-source project. The core feature set is stable, but as with any community project, expect occasional rough edges and feature gaps that get filled over time. For production-critical use, test in a sandbox before relying on any new feature.

FAQ — Hermes Agent HUD UI

Is HUD UI really free?

Yes — completely free as open-source. The only cost is whatever your model provider charges per token.

How long does setup take?

Two to three minutes. Either paste the install command in terminal or ask Hermes to install the plugin for you.

Does it replace the terminal?

No, but it covers most of what you'd do in the terminal for daily agent management. The terminal still wins for quick one-off commands.

How does it compare to Hermes Workspace?

Workspace has a cleaner UI and the Swarms feature. HUD UI has deeper diagnostics and a feature-dense single-pane view. Most pros run both eventually.

What's the best model to pair with it?

For coding work, Sonnet 4.8 is my pick. For cheap volume work, Kimi K2.5 or MiniMax M2.5. For free use, the alpha model on OpenRouter that's currently in beta.

Will it work with non-Hermes agents?

Yes — the agents panel shows Claude agents, Codex agents, and other agent types running on your machine, not just Hermes ones.

Worth installing today?

If you're running Hermes daily and want a real dashboard, yes. If you're already happy in Hermes Workspace, install HUD UI as a secondary tool rather than a replacement.

Latest Updates

Hermes Agent Goals (NEW Persistent Update FREE) — autonomous loops that pair perfectly with HUD UI's scheduled tasks panel.
Sonnet 4.8 Review — the model I default to inside HUD UI for coding work.
🌐 Read on aiprofitboardroom.com — sister-site take on the same topic.