How to Work with Hermes
Hermes can research, transform information, create useful artifacts, and help plan actions through specialized, repeatable workflows. This guide uses synthetic examples only and does not connect visitors to private data, live agents, uploads, administration, or personal integrations.
Research and understanding
Research with sources
Collect evidence, compare claims, and preserve links and uncertainty.Compare three primary sources about a public topic and list unresolved disagreements.
Summarize public web content
Turn a long article or public page into a concise brief.Summarize this public article for a five-minute review. Keep the source link.
Explain technical material
Translate jargon into plain language without erasing important caveats.Explain this public specification to a nontechnical reader.
Documents and structured work
OCR and document conversion
Extract text from a scan, clean formatting, and prepare an accessible document.Extract this sample scan and preserve headings and tables.
Spreadsheets
Organize supplied data, add formulas, and create readable summaries or charts.Turn this synthetic expense list into a categorized workbook.
Presentations
Build a clear slide narrative from public or deliberately supplied material.Create a six-slide teaching deck from this public outline.
Media and communication
Image redaction
Blur or cover sensitive regions before an image is shared.Redact the sample name and account number, then verify they are unreadable.
Voice output
Convert a finished brief or script into an audio file for listening.Read this public-domain passage aloud at a measured pace.
Draft before sending
Prepare messages for review without presenting the draft as already sent.Draft a courteous reply. Do not send it.
Planning and stewardship
Capture and clarify
Turn an idea into a clear next action, question, or reference note.Clarify this idea into one concrete next action and list assumptions.
Calendar reasoning
Compare supplied dates, identify conflicts, and draft options before any calendar write.Compare these fictional meeting options and explain the trade-offs.
Review and verification
Check whether a requested artifact actually works instead of stopping at a plan.Build the sample, run its checks, and report the real results.
Skills and repeatable workflows
Use specialized skills
Hermes can follow task-specific workflows for research, documents, media, planning, software, and other recurring work. Skills preserve proven steps, boundaries, and verification checks so a successful process can be used consistently rather than reinvented each time.Use the research-notecard skill to build a traceable evidence project. Keep the digital cards canonical.
Research cards: two output tiers
Tier 1 is the default: canonical digital source and evidence cards, citations, question indexes, unresolved disagreements, and a readable compiled packet. Tier 2 is added only when requested: a dated, printable 6 × 4 landscape card deck generated from Tier 1, with QR links and preflight checks. The paper deck supports sorting and physical exploration but never replaces the canonical evidence notes.Build Tier 1 research cards from inspected sources, then create the Tier 2 printable deck for the cards connected to question Q3.
Keep evidence and interpretation distinct
Source-derived quotations, factual extracts, and data should retain attribution, locators, verification state, and visible uncertainty. Interpretive notes remain clearly labeled and separate unless interpretation is explicitly requested.Collect atomic evidence cards and preserve disagreements. Do not synthesize a conclusion.
Synthetic artifact showcase
Synthetic community garden planning example. The fictional site, organization, people, schedule, and budget demonstrate how public guidance can become several coordinated, verified deliverables. No uploads, live agent, or private data are involved.
Privacy and approval model
Public pages should contain intentionally public information or synthetic examples—not private records, credentials, personal workflows, or internal administration details.
PrivatePrivate information belongs behind an appropriate private boundary. Read-only access limits changes, but it does not by itself make information safe to publish.
DraftA draft is reviewable work with no external effect. Drafting a message, event, or change is different from sending or committing it.
ApprovedAn external action should follow a clear preview and explicit approval. The confirmation should state what will change, who or what is affected, and how the result will be verified.
Good request pattern
1. State the outcome
Say what useful result you need and who it is for.
2. Name the source and boundaries
Identify what material may be used, what must remain private, and whether the work is read-only.
3. Require verification
Ask Hermes to test links, open generated files, run checks, or read back changes.
4. Separate drafts from actions
Use explicit language such as “draft only,” “preview first,” or “wait for approval before sending.”
Public boundaries
This page intentionally provides explanations only. It does not expose a live Hermes agent, uploads, sessions, private integrations, route topology, administrative controls, internal endpoints, or approval/write mechanisms.
Current product documentation maintained by the Hermes Agent project.