Skills System

Skills are on-demand knowledge documents the agent can load when needed. They follow a progressive disclosure pattern to minimize token usage and are compatible with the agentskills.io open standard.

All skills live in ~/.hermes/skills/ — a single directory that serves as the source of truth. On fresh install, bundled skills are copied from the repo. Hub-installed and agent-created skills also go here. The agent can modify or delete any skill.

Using Skills

Every installed skill is automatically available as a slash command:

# In the CLI or any messaging platform:
/gif-search funny cats
/axolotl help me fine-tune Llama 3 on my dataset
/github-pr-workflow create a PR for the auth refactor

# Just the skill name loads it and lets the agent ask what you need:
/excalidraw

You can also interact with skills through natural conversation:

hermes chat --toolsets skills -q "What skills do you have?"
hermes chat --toolsets skills -q "Show me the axolotl skill"

Progressive Disclosure

Skills use a token-efficient loading pattern:

Level 0: skills_list()           → [{name, description, category}, ...]   (~3k tokens)
Level 1: skill_view(name)        → Full content + metadata       (varies)
Level 2: skill_view(name, path)  → Specific reference file       (varies)

The agent only loads the full skill content when it actually needs it.

SKILL.md Format

---
name: my-skill
description: Brief description of what this skill does
version: 1.0.0
metadata:
  hermes:
    tags: [python, automation]
    category: devops
---

# Skill Title

## When to Use
Trigger conditions for this skill.

## Procedure
1. Step one
2. Step two

## Pitfalls
- Known failure modes and fixes

## Verification
How to confirm it worked.

Skill Directory Structure

~/.hermes/skills/                  # Single source of truth
├── mlops/                         # Category directory
│   ├── axolotl/
│   │   ├── SKILL.md               # Main instructions (required)
│   │   ├── references/            # Additional docs
│   │   ├── templates/             # Output formats
│   │   └── assets/                # Supplementary files
│   └── vllm/
│       └── SKILL.md
├── devops/
│   └── deploy-k8s/                # Agent-created skill
│       ├── SKILL.md
│       └── references/
├── .hub/                          # Skills Hub state
│   ├── lock.json
│   ├── quarantine/
│   └── audit.log
└── .bundled_manifest              # Tracks seeded bundled skills

Agent-Managed Skills (skill_manage tool)

The agent can create, update, and delete its own skills via the skill_manage tool. This is the agent's procedural memory — when it figures out a non-trivial workflow, it saves the approach as a skill for future reuse.

When the Agent Creates Skills

• After completing a complex task (5+ tool calls) successfully
• When it hit errors or dead ends and found the working path
• When the user corrected its approach
• When it discovered a non-trivial workflow

Actions

Action	Use for	Key params
create	New skill from scratch	name, content (full SKILL.md), optional category
patch	Targeted fixes (preferred)	name, old_string, new_string
edit	Major structural rewrites	name, content (full SKILL.md replacement)
delete	Remove a skill entirely	name
write_file	Add/update supporting files	name, file_path, file_content
remove_file	Remove a supporting file	name, file_path

tip

The patch action is preferred for updates — it's more token-efficient than edit because only the changed text appears in the tool call.

Skills Hub

Search, install, and manage skills from online registries:

hermes skills search kubernetes          # Search all sources
hermes skills install openai/skills/k8s  # Install with security scan
hermes skills inspect openai/skills/k8s  # Preview before installing
hermes skills list --source hub          # List hub-installed skills
hermes skills audit                      # Re-scan all hub skills
hermes skills uninstall k8s              # Remove a hub skill
hermes skills publish skills/my-skill --to github --repo owner/repo
hermes skills snapshot export setup.json # Export skill config
hermes skills tap add myorg/skills-repo  # Add a custom source

All hub-installed skills go through a security scanner that checks for data exfiltration, prompt injection, destructive commands, and other threats.

Trust Levels

Level	Source	Policy
builtin	Ships with Hermes	Always trusted
trusted	openai/skills, anthropics/skills	Trusted sources
community	Everything else	Any findings = blocked unless --force

Slash Commands (Inside Chat)

All the same commands work with /skills prefix:

/skills search kubernetes
/skills install openai/skills/skill-creator
/skills list