Skins & Themes

Skins control the visual presentation of the Hermes CLI: banner colors, spinner faces and verbs, response-box labels, branding text, and the tool activity prefix.

Conversational style and visual style are separate concepts:

• Personality changes the agent's tone and wording.
• Skin changes the CLI's appearance.

Change skins

/skin                # show the current skin and list available skins
/skin ares           # switch to a built-in skin
/skin mytheme        # switch to a custom skin from ~/.hermes/skins/mytheme.yaml

Or set the default skin in ~/.hermes/config.yaml:

display:
  skin: default

Built-in skins

Skin	Description	Agent branding	Visual character
default	Classic Hermes — gold and kawaii	Hermes Agent	Warm gold borders, cornsilk text, kawaii faces in spinners. The familiar caduceus banner. Clean and inviting.
ares	War-god theme — crimson and bronze	Ares Agent	Deep crimson borders with bronze accents. Aggressive spinner verbs ("forging", "marching", "tempering steel"). Custom sword-and-shield ASCII art banner.
mono	Monochrome — clean grayscale	Hermes Agent	All grays — no color. Borders are #555555, text is #c9d1d9. Ideal for minimal terminal setups or screen recordings.
slate	Cool blue — developer-focused	Hermes Agent	Royal blue borders (#4169e1), soft blue text. Calm and professional. No custom spinner — uses default faces.
poseidon	Ocean-god theme — deep blue and seafoam	Poseidon Agent	Deep blue to seafoam gradient. Ocean-themed spinners ("charting currents", "sounding the depth"). Trident ASCII art banner.
sisyphus	Sisyphean theme — austere grayscale with persistence	Sisyphus Agent	Light grays with stark contrast. Boulder-themed spinners ("pushing uphill", "resetting the boulder", "enduring the loop"). Boulder-and-hill ASCII art banner.
charizard	Volcanic theme — burnt orange and ember	Charizard Agent	Warm burnt orange to ember gradient. Fire-themed spinners ("banking into the draft", "measuring burn"). Dragon-silhouette ASCII art banner.

Complete list of configurable keys

Colors (colors:)

Controls all color values throughout the CLI. Values are hex color strings.

Key	Description	Default (default skin)
banner_border	Panel border around the startup banner	#CD7F32 (bronze)
banner_title	Title text color in the banner	#FFD700 (gold)
banner_accent	Section headers in the banner (Available Tools, etc.)	#FFBF00 (amber)
banner_dim	Muted text in the banner (separators, secondary labels)	#B8860B (dark goldenrod)
banner_text	Body text in the banner (tool names, skill names)	#FFF8DC (cornsilk)
ui_accent	General UI accent color (highlights, active elements)	#FFBF00
ui_label	UI labels and tags	#4dd0e1 (teal)
ui_ok	Success indicators (checkmarks, completion)	#4caf50 (green)
ui_error	Error indicators (failures, blocked)	#ef5350 (red)
ui_warn	Warning indicators (caution, approval prompts)	#ffa726 (orange)
prompt	Interactive prompt text color	#FFF8DC
input_rule	Horizontal rule above the input area	#CD7F32
response_border	Border around the agent's response box (ANSI escape)	#FFD700
session_label	Session label color	#DAA520
session_border	Session ID dim border color	#8B8682

Spinner (spinner:)

Controls the animated spinner shown while waiting for API responses.

Key	Type	Description	Example
waiting_faces	list of strings	Faces cycled while waiting for API response	["(⚔)", "(⛨)", "(▲)"]
thinking_faces	list of strings	Faces cycled during model reasoning	["(⚔)", "(⌁)", "(<>)"]
thinking_verbs	list of strings	Verbs shown in spinner messages	["forging", "plotting", "hammering plans"]
wings	list of [left, right] pairs	Decorative brackets around the spinner	[["⟪⚔", "⚔⟫"], ["⟪▲", "▲⟫"]]

When spinner values are empty (like in default and mono), hardcoded defaults from display.py are used.

Branding (branding:)

Text strings used throughout the CLI interface.

Key	Description	Default
agent_name	Name shown in banner title and status display	Hermes Agent
welcome	Welcome message shown at CLI startup	Welcome to Hermes Agent! Type your message or /help for commands.
goodbye	Message shown on exit	Goodbye! ⚕
response_label	Label on the response box header	⚕ Hermes
prompt_symbol	Symbol before the user input prompt	❯
help_header	Header text for the /help command output	(^_^)? Available Commands

Other top-level keys

Key	Type	Description	Default
tool_prefix	string	Character prefixed to tool output lines in the CLI	┊
tool_emojis	dict	Per-tool emoji overrides for spinners and progress ({tool_name: emoji})	{}
banner_logo	string	Rich-markup ASCII art logo (replaces the default HERMES_AGENT banner)	""
banner_hero	string	Rich-markup hero art (replaces the default caduceus art)	""

Custom skins

Create YAML files under ~/.hermes/skins/. User skins inherit missing values from the built-in default skin, so you only need to specify the keys you want to change.

Full custom skin YAML template

# ~/.hermes/skins/mytheme.yaml
# Complete skin template — all keys shown. Delete any you don't need;
# missing values automatically inherit from the 'default' skin.

name: mytheme
description: My custom theme

colors:
  banner_border: "#CD7F32"
  banner_title: "#FFD700"
  banner_accent: "#FFBF00"
  banner_dim: "#B8860B"
  banner_text: "#FFF8DC"
  ui_accent: "#FFBF00"
  ui_label: "#4dd0e1"
  ui_ok: "#4caf50"
  ui_error: "#ef5350"
  ui_warn: "#ffa726"
  prompt: "#FFF8DC"
  input_rule: "#CD7F32"
  response_border: "#FFD700"
  session_label: "#DAA520"
  session_border: "#8B8682"

spinner:
  waiting_faces:
    - "(⚔)"
    - "(⛨)"
    - "(▲)"
  thinking_faces:
    - "(⚔)"
    - "(⌁)"
    - "(<>)"
  thinking_verbs:
    - "processing"
    - "analyzing"
    - "computing"
    - "evaluating"
  wings:
    - ["⟪⚡", "⚡⟫"]
    - ["⟪●", "●⟫"]

branding:
  agent_name: "My Agent"
  welcome: "Welcome to My Agent! Type your message or /help for commands."
  goodbye: "See you later! ⚡"
  response_label: " ⚡ My Agent "
  prompt_symbol: "⚡ ❯ "
  help_header: "(⚡) Available Commands"

tool_prefix: "┊"

# Per-tool emoji overrides (optional)
tool_emojis:
  terminal: "⚔"
  web_search: "🔮"
  read_file: "📄"

# Custom ASCII art banners (optional, Rich markup supported)
# banner_logo: |
#   [bold #FFD700] MY AGENT [/]
# banner_hero: |
#   [#FFD700]  Custom art here  [/]

Minimal custom skin example

Since everything inherits from default, a minimal skin only needs to change what's different:

name: cyberpunk
description: Neon terminal theme

colors:
  banner_border: "#FF00FF"
  banner_title: "#00FFFF"
  banner_accent: "#FF1493"

spinner:
  thinking_verbs: ["jacking in", "decrypting", "uploading"]
  wings:
    - ["⟨⚡", "⚡⟩"]

branding:
  agent_name: "Cyber Agent"
  response_label: " ⚡ Cyber "

tool_prefix: "▏"

Operational notes

• Built-in skins load from hermes_cli/skin_engine.py.
• Unknown skins automatically fall back to default.
• /skin updates the active CLI theme immediately for the current session.
• User skins in ~/.hermes/skins/ take precedence over built-in skins with the same name.
• Skin changes via /skin are session-only. To make a skin your permanent default, set it in config.yaml.
• The banner_logo and banner_hero fields support Rich console markup (e.g., [bold #FF0000]text[/]) for colored ASCII art.