The Reach Release
June 19, 2026 · Nous Research · teknium1
2× the contributor count of v0.16.0 (170 → 245). Released exactly 14 days after v0.16.0 "The Surface Release" (Jun 5, 2026).
Hermes sends/receives iMessage without a Mac relay or BlueBubbles bridge. hermes photon login with device-code OAuth. Free to start, positioned as the BlueBubbles successor.
Hermes connects to Raft as an external agent. Privacy-by-contract: wake payloads carry only metadata, never message bodies.
Rebindable keyboard shortcuts, native OS notifications, live subagent watch-windows, composer model selector, RTL/bidi detection, resizable VS Code-themed terminal, any VS Code Marketplace theme installable.
delegate_task(background=true) dispatches a subagent that runs in the background and returns a handle immediately. Result re-enters conversation when finished.
image_generateEdit/transform source images, not just generate. Same tool, same pattern as video_generate, across every supported provider.
Schedule by picking a blueprint by name. Hermes asks for what it needs. Renders natively on every surface — form/CLI/TUI/messenger.
grok-composer-2.5-fast in the xAI OAuth picker, full 200k context. Use your Grok plan with Hermes's agent loop, no separate API key.
Pick model, skills, MCPs from the browser without hand-editing config.yaml. Global profile switcher.
Connected hubs, Featured section, full skill previews before install, security scan on each. Real browsing experience, not a flat list.
memory Tool — Atomic Batch OperationsApply a batch of add/replace/remove edits atomically against the final character budget. Free up space and add new entries in a single call. Collapses multi-turn dance into one operation.
Every token-required endpoint correctly returns 401 behind OAuth gate. WebSocket auth uses the served dashboard token. Warning fires when public_url override is silently rejected.
Routine curation now costs zero tokens. Aux-model-spending "build umbrella skills" pass is off by default (curator.consolidate: true to re-enable).
gRPC-native channel, markdown rendering, emoji reactions, outbound media via spectrum-ts. Free to start.
Meta's first-party, hosted, no-bridge-process path. Point at your Business API credentials and Hermes talks WhatsApp through the supported channel.
Groups, native attachments, text batching, auto-accept.
Bundled platform plugin with activity hooks.
Rich messages now always-on (opt-out available). Native markup instead of flattened text.
cli.py main(): 3297 → 954 linesExtracted 28 subcommand parsers into hermes_cli/subcommands/, promoted 9 closure handlers. 32 slash-command handlers → CLICommandsMixin. 18 model-flow wizard functions → model_setup_flows.
gateway/run.py: 19157 → 15870 lines42 slash-command handlers → GatewaySlashCommandsMixin. Authorization cluster → GatewayAuthorizationMixin. Kanban watcher loops → GatewayKanbanWatchersMixin.
run_agent.py Turn LoopExtracted prologue into TurnContext, post-loop tail into finalize_turn, consolidated inner-retry-loop recovery flags into TurnRetryState.
Two new models in the picker.
grok-build-0.1Updated default for the xAI provider.
Auto-detect OpenRouter credential from the pool. Resolve xAI OAuth across profiles. Honor model.default_headers for custom OpenAI-compatible providers. Bedrock falls back to non-streaming InvokeModel when IAM denies streaming.
Stream a delegated agent's activity into its own pane. Keep working while the subagent churns.
Surface every provider/model from hermes model in the GUI. Warn when main-model switch leaves aux tasks pinned elsewhere.
Install any VS Code theme directly into the desktop app. Assignable per profile. Window translucency slider.
Palette polish, auto-detect RTL/bidi, Mac-style session switcher, worktree-aware sidebar grouping.
Unified one-machine-wide view with global profile switcher. Profile-scoped skills & toolsets.
Enable webhooks from the Webhooks page. Idempotent hermes dashboard register. First-class cron jobs in sidebar + dashboard scheduler.
Optional max session cap. Drop empty sessions on exit. Configurable Hindsight retain observation scopes. Honcho gateway-gated identity tree.
Gemini persona prompts + audio tags. xAI auto speech tags + speed/streaming knobs. Piper speaker_id. OGG for Telegram auto-TTS.
The 71% reduction in cli.py means faster startup, easier maintenance. No user-facing breaking changes announced.
The operations array on the memory tool is additive. Existing add/replace/remove calls still work, but multi-step memory updates should migrate to the atomic batch form.
Photon Spectrum is positioned as the BlueBubbles successor. Existing BlueBubbles integrations should plan migration.
Both ship in same 24h. OpenClaw focuses on channel delivery (Telegram rich, WhatsApp ACP), Codex integration. Hermes v0.17.0 goes deeper on desktop UX, background subagents, and channel diversity (iMessage + Raft + SimpleX).
Anthropic shipped new code_execution_20260120 tool same day. Hermes v0.17.0 adds support for Claude Fable 5 — first time a new Anthropic model has landed in Hermes on day-zero of release.
GLM-5.2 (Chinese open-weights leader), Claude Fable 5 (Anthropic frontier), Composer 2.5 (xAI). Hermes v0.17.0 makes Hermes the only platform with first-day support for all three major new model families of the week.
v0.16.0 had 170 contributors; v0.17.0 has 245. This 44% contributor growth in 14 days is the strongest signal yet that Hermes has crossed from "interesting project" to "destination platform" for AI agent developers.
v0.17.0 adds iMessage, WhatsApp Business API (official), SimpleX, Raft. Combined with prior Telegram, Discord, Slack, Signal, Email, Teams, Matrix, QQbot, Weixin, Hermes now speaks more messaging protocols than any competitor.
VS Code themes, worktree awareness, watch-windows, RTL detection, Japanese/Chinese language switching. The desktop is no longer a thin wrapper around the CLI — it's becoming a distinct surface with its own UX primitives.
1,475 commits, 800 PRs, 245 contributors, 300+ issues closed in 14 days. The largest Hermes release ever and one of the largest open-source AI agent releases of 2026.
iMessage, WhatsApp Business API, SimpleX, Raft, plus enriched Telegram/Discord/Slack. Hermes is now the most messaging-protocol-rich agent platform.
GLM-5.2, Claude Fable 5, xAI Composer 2.5 all in the picker at release. The "verified 1M context" claim on GLM-5.2 is notable — earlier reports of Zhipu 1M context were unverified.
71% reduction in cli.py main(). The "god-file" era of Hermes CLI is ending.
Generated 2026-06-20 · Hermes Agent v0.17.0 "The Reach Release" · Briefing by Stark News AI cron