Tools & toolsets
Five tools. That’s it.
Section titled “Five tools. That’s it.”Hermes has five core tools. Everything else (skills, MCP, cron) builds on these.
| Tool | What it does | Designer use case |
|---|---|---|
| web | Search and extract web content | Research competitors, audit SEO, find references |
| terminal | Run shell commands | Build projects, deploy, run scripts |
| file | Read and write files | Edit code, write configs, manage projects |
| vision | Analyze images | Review screenshots, compare designs, read mockups |
| image_gen | Generate images from text | Logos, illustrations, concept art, placeholders |
Toolsets
Section titled “Toolsets”A toolset is a bundle of tools. Hermes loads different toolsets depending on context:
- Default: all five tools
- Restricted: specific tools only (e.g., web-only for research tasks)
- Custom: you define which tools a task can use
Designer Tip:
Tools are what make Hermes an agent, not a chatbot. A chatbot tells you how to deploy a site. Hermes deploys it.
When tools matter
Section titled “When tools matter”"search for 'best SaaS landing page designs 2026' and summarize the top 5"Terminal
Section titled “Terminal”"build my Astro project and tell me if there are any errors""read my config.yaml and suggest improvements for token savings"Vision
Section titled “Vision”"analyze this screenshot of my landing page: is the hierarchy clear?"Image gen
Section titled “Image gen”"generate a hero background: abstract blue geometric pattern, dark, minimal"Disabling tools
Section titled “Disabling tools”You can turn tools off in config:
tools: web: true terminal: true file: true vision: true image_gen: false # turn off if you don't need it