Agent Station

A Hermes Desktop plugin that shows what the AI in your focused chat is doing. One page shows the main agent and the subagents it started (delegate_task), drawn live as a wireframe space station: what each one works on, the files it changed, its answer and its cost. A Commands tab lists the chat's background shell commands, and a Replay tab steps through every file edit the AI made after each of your requests. A status-bar chip shows the running batch's progress while the page is closed. Everything is read-only.

Screenshots

Drawn from synthetic test data (the fixture home of tests/live.py), in the real app engine.

Supported Hermes versions

Requires Hermes 0.21.7 or newer, tested up to 0.22.2. Your Hermes version is in Settings → About (or run hermes --version). An older Hermes refuses to load the plugin's agent half and says "requires hermes >=0.21.7".

Install

In the Hermes app:

1. Open Settings → Capabilities → Plugins → Install from Git.
2. Paste this repository's web address (the page you are reading) into "Repository".
3. Click Review repository.
4. Leave "Enable agent plugin after install" on, then install.
5. "Agent Station" appears in the sidebar.

Hermes copies the desktop page into place by itself; there is nothing to copy by hand.

From a terminal instead:

hermes plugins install <repository URL> --enable

Update

Install from Git again with the same address and tick "Force reinstall (replace if already installed)", or run:

hermes plugins update agent-station

Uninstall

Settings → Capabilities → Plugins → the Agent Station row → Uninstall, or:

hermes plugins remove agent-station

Moving from Subagent Watch

Agent Station is the new name of Subagent Watch. Remove the old plugin first: Plugins → Uninstall "subagent-watch", or hermes plugins remove subagent-watch. If a "Subagents" entry is still in the sidebar afterwards, uninstall the remaining Desktop row or delete <Hermes home>/desktop-plugins/subagent-watch. Then install Agent Station. Keeping both shows two sidebar entries and two status-bar chips. There are no settings to carry over.

Privacy

• Read-only. The backend opens Hermes' state.db with SQLite mode=ro, so it cannot write, and it registers GET routes only. The static audit (tests/audit_static.py) fails if a writing route or a file write ever appears.
• Local only. The page talks only to your own Hermes. It makes no other network calls and sends no telemetry.
• One chat at a time. The page reads one chat at a time; a request for a worker, command or edit that belongs to another chat is refused (403).

Troubleshooting

• No "Agent Station" in the sidebar. Turn on the plugin row's Desktop switch, click Rescan, or restart Hermes (pages register when the app starts).
• The page says something "could not be read". Turn on the row's Agent switch (the backend only runs for enabled plugins), then restart Hermes.
• Two entries in the sidebar, or two progress chips. The plugin's old version is still installed under its old name; remove it as the moving section above says.
• "requires hermes >=0.21.7". Your Hermes is older than the oldest supported version; update Hermes.

For developers

Read AGENTS.md (the rules for changing this repository, setup and the gate order) and Docs/agent-station-notes.md (where every number on the page comes from and why each status rule is what it is) before changing anything.

Backend routes

Mounted at /api/plugins/agent-station/: GET /children · GET /output · GET /processes · GET /process_output · GET /files · GET /replay · GET /replay_step — all read-only.

state.db is opened with mode=ro; the process list reads the files Hermes writes itself (processes.json, logs/process-results/). A session or process that belongs to another chat is refused with 403.

Gates

Run from tests/ after npm ci. What each lock asserts is in the header of its file.

python check_api.py                 # backend against a fixture state.db   (--live: this home's too)
node render_check.mjs               # jsdom + real React, driven like a user
python audit_static.py              # i18n, a11y, colours, silent catches, read-only backend, release, name, licence, privacy
python contract_core.py             # everything read from the core still exists (--selftest)
python release_gate.py              # version / changelog / supported range / installed copy rules each fire
python canary_audit.py              # every mutation must turn its gate red
python live.py                      # the real panel in the core's Electron on fixture data (--selftest)

A rule that has never failed is not evidence: canary_audit.py, release_gate.py, contract_core.py --selftest and live.py --selftest break every rule once and require the gate to name it.

Portability

Variable	Default	What it points at
HERMES_HOME	%LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes, else ~/.hermes	the install root (state.db, the installed desktop copy)
HERMES_AGENT_DIR	<HERMES_HOME>/hermes-agent when present	the core checkout — contract sources, compiled stylesheet
HERMES_PYTHON	the core's venv, else the running interpreter	the interpreter with fastapi for check_api.py
HERMES_ELECTRON	the core's apps/desktop/node_modules/electron	the binary for the measured render

python env.py prints what a run resolved. A missing core is named (no Hermes core found), never silently passed.

Continuous integration

• .github/workflows/ci.yml runs the backend check, the static audit, the core contract (and its selftest), the release gate, the jsdom render check and the canary run on Ubuntu and Windows, against a sparse checkout of the oldest supported core, pinned at CORE_SHA (v0.21.7). It runs once per pull request (a newer commit cancels the older run) and on every push to main; Actions → CI → "Run workflow" runs it by hand.
• .github/workflows/newest-core.yml runs the backend check, the render check and the core contract (and its selftest) every week against the newest core: the latest Hermes release and the head of main. It also runs by hand from the Actions tab.
• live.py needs the core's built desktop app, its Electron and a display, so it stays local: run it before a release.

main has no GitHub-enforced protection, so the rule lives in AGENTS.md: every change reaches main through a pull request whose CI is green.

Versioning

plugin.yaml is the source; bump plugin.yaml, dashboard/manifest.json and the top CHANGELOG.md heading together (the release gate checks them). When the oldest supported Hermes moves, bump requires_hermes in plugin.yaml, the range under "Supported Hermes versions" above and CORE_SHA in ci.yml together. Release checklist: bump, run every gate (including live.py), then tag.

License

MIT — see LICENSE. Copyright (c) 2026 Muhammed Enes Alpler.