Alan's Way computer-use provider

A computer-use provider for Hermes. Select it and the stock computer_use tool drives desktop apps on the user's own computer through the Alan's Way app. When that computer is offline it drives the VM's desktop instead, with no change on the Hermes side.

It needs a Hermes build with the pluggable computer-use API (pull request 133556, merged after 0.21.5). On older Hermes the plugin installs and logs that it did nothing.

Setup

1. Install the alans-way plugin and run its workspace setup. That writes the profile's mcp_servers.workspace_browser block, which this provider reuses.
2. Install this plugin: hermes plugins install alans-way-computer.
3. Select it by setting computer_use.backend: alans-way-computer in the profile's config.yaml, or run hermes config set computer_use.backend alans-way-computer.
4. Restart the gateway. Check it with hermes computer-use doctor, which runs the router's probe and says whether the computer or the VM desktop is answering.

What it does

• Starts the router from the workspace_browser block as a long-lived node child, one per Hermes session, and talks to it over its stdio. The router reaches the user's computer by SSH over the user's Tailscale tailnet and falls back to the VM desktop when that fails. A dead or silent router is restarted on the next call.
• Never takes focus. Input is delivered in the background, focus_app only chooses which app later actions target, and foreground delivery is refused. Keychains, password managers and password fields are off limits.
• After a switch between the computer and the VM, app ids and element numbers no longer mean anything. The next action returns host_changed: call list_apps and capture again.
• Typing needs a field: use set_value with an element number. type with no target, middle and triple clicks and modifier clicks return unsupported_action.

Approvals

Hermes asks for approval before every computer_use action except capture, list_apps, list_windows and wait, once per action type. An unattended Telegram bot has nobody to answer, so grant them once. Either tap Always in Telegram when asked, or add these entries to command_allowlist in the profile's config.yaml, one each, and restart the gateway:

command_allowlist:
  - cua:click:background
  - cua:double_click:background
  - cua:right_click:background
  - cua:drag:background
  - cua:scroll:background
  - cua:key:background
  - cua:set_value:background
  - cua:focus_app:background

computer_use.permission_mode applies to the cua driver only and has no effect here.

Limits

• It runs inside the Hermes process, so it cannot load under plugins.isolation: host.
• It spawns node, resolved the way Hermes resolves an MCP server command.
• Screenshots have no numbered overlays: use the element numbers in the list. Scroll amounts are wheel ticks, converted to pages at a quarter page per tick.