Hermes Agent Kanban: Your First Researcher and Writer Workflow

Hermes Agent includes a shared task board called Kanban, according to the official Hermes Kanban guide. A Kanban board is a set of columns that show the stage of each job, with one card per job. The guide says each card can go to a named profile, which is a saved helper with its own memory and settings. The guide says the board is stored on disk, so cards, comments and results stay after a restart.

OneClickClaw first mentioned this board in the Hermes mobile app news piece. This guide walks through a first workflow: a researcher card, then a writer card that waits for it.

What Hermes Kanban does

The official guide compares the board with a quick hand-off, where one helper asks another a question and waits for the answer in the same turn. The guide says the board suits work that should survive a restart, wait for a person, or pass from one named role to the next. You can drive it from the web dashboard, the desktop app, chat commands or the terminal, according to the same guide.

The board can also split a rough idea into smaller cards on its own. The guide says this automatic splitting is switched on by default and acts on cards in the first column, called triage. For a first workflow, the guide's Manual mode keeps those cards in place until you act.

What it costs

According to the official guide, each worker runs on the AI model set in its profile. You pay for that model in the usual way. The guide caps each attached file at 25 MB.

Before you start

Check that your installed Hermes shows a Kanban board and that its help lists the Kanban commands. If a name on this page differs from your screen, follow your screen.

Use a small practice project for the first run. If the board will later hold real work, copy any profile data you cannot replace with a backup method you already trust.

Give each card a profile that exists on your machine. The official guide says a card assigned to an unknown profile stays in the ready column, and the board records the missing name. If you only have the default profile, assign both cards to it. The link between the cards is the lesson.

Keep the Hermes gateway running if you want cards to start on their own. The gateway is the background service that keeps Hermes online. The guide says the dispatcher, the loop that picks up ready cards and starts a worker for each, runs inside the gateway. By the same guide, ready cards wait while the gateway is stopped.

Decide where finished files should live. The official guide says each card gets a temporary scratch folder by default, deleted when the card is done. The guide adds that files the worker lists as deliverables are copied to the card first. If you want the whole folder kept, point the card at a folder of your own.

Step by step: a researcher, then a writer

Step 1. Set up the board and look at it. The official guide lists terminal commands for this: one creates the board if it is missing, one lists the cards, one counts them, and a diagnostics command prints a short health report for the board.

Step 2. Start the gateway if it is stopped. The guide's quick start uses the Hermes gateway start command for this. Once it runs, the guide says ready cards are picked up on the next check, which comes every 60 seconds by default.

Step 3. Open the Kanban tab in the web dashboard and set the Orchestration switch at the top of the page to Manual. The official guide says Manual turns off only the automatic splitting of triage cards. A profile can still create cards, and a finished card can still send a note back to the chat that created it.

Step 4. Create an empty folder for the project and write down its full path. A full path starts from the top of the disk. The guide says a chosen folder must use a full path and is kept after the card is done.

Step 5. Create the researcher card. In the card text, say which sources the researcher may use, what a finished draft looks like, and that nothing gets published. A good acceptance line is: a draft in the project folder with at least three named public sources. Assign your researcher profile, or the default profile. Set the card's workspace to the folder from step 4. The guide's terminal create command takes the same fields: a title, an assignee, a workspace, a body and a parent.

Step 6. Create the writer card and set the researcher card as its parent. The official guide says a child card waits until its parent is done and that the child's worker can then read the parent's hand-off notes. Add the parent link when you create the writer card, or before it starts running. The guide says a link added to a card that is already running is refused.

Step 7. Watch the columns. According to the official guide, the dashboard shows triage, to do, ready, running, blocked, review and done, plus an archived column you can switch on. The guide says a child card waits in to do while its parent is open, then moves to ready and running, and a worker that needs a person can move its card to blocked. Click any card to read its comments, attachments and recent activity.

Step 8. If the researcher is missing an input, leave a comment that names it and block the card. Add what was missing, then unblock it. The guide says an unblocked card returns to review or ready when its parents are done, or to to do while a parent is still open.

Step 9. Open the project folder and read both results before you archive anything. The guide says a worker's listed deliverables from a scratch folder sit in the card's attachments.

Step 10. If a ready card has not started, the official guide offers a dry run of the dispatcher. It is a test pass that changes nothing and lists each card held back with the reason. One reason the guide gives is a recent success hold, which pauses a card for about an hour after a finished run so a person can review it first. Another is a missing profile.

Habits that keep the first board safe

Keep the dashboard on your own machine. The official guide says opening the dashboard to every network address makes the board reachable from outside, and the board holds task text, comments and folder paths.

Write in each card what done looks like and which folder to use. The guide says sibling cards cannot see each other, so a shared decision belongs in both cards. A later option, goal mode, keeps one card working until its written test is met. The guide also says a goal set inside an ordinary chat never creates a Kanban card.

Quick answers

Do I have to let Hermes split my idea into cards? Manual mode keeps triage cards in place until you act, according to the official guide, and the guide keeps Auto mode available for later.

Will my files vanish when a card finishes? The guide says files in a scratch folder are deleted unless the worker listed them as deliverables, while a folder you chose by full path is kept.

Can I run the board from Telegram or another chat app? The official guide says every Kanban command also works as a slash command, a short command typed into chat, on Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp and the other supported apps.

Related guides

• Connect Hermes Desktop to a remote server
• Hermes Agent 0.23: one home for every chat
• Hermes Agent mobile app: what the beta does
• How to install Hermes Agent and start your first chat

Sources

• Official Hermes Agent Kanban guide
• OneClickClaw news piece on the Hermes mobile app beta