How to Install Hermes Agent on Mac

Getting Hermes Agent running on macOS 12 (Monterey) or newer can be done two ways: the official terminal installation, or a one-click installer. Here is both, honestly, with the Mac-specific gotchas.

Requirements

macOS 12 or newer (Apple Silicon and Intel both work), about 5 GB of free disk space and an internet connection. If Xcode Command Line Tools are missing, macOS will offer to install them — accept and re-run afterwards.

Method 1 — Official manual installation (Terminal)

Open Terminal (Spotlight → “Terminal”) and run: curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash — Python, Node.js, ripgrep and ffmpeg install automatically in 10–20 minutes. An English-only wizard then asks for your AI provider; the free Nous Portal option needs no API key.

Mac-specific problems and fixes

Gatekeeper warning (“unidentified developer”): right-click the file and choose Open instead of double-clicking. “hermes: command not found”: open a new Terminal window, or run export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH". Xcode tools popup: accept it, wait for it to finish, then run the installer again.

Method 2 — One-click installation (no Terminal)

Hermes Easy Installer packs everything into one double-clickable file: a wizard in 6 languages checks your Mac, runs the official installation silently, sets up the free Nous Portal login, installs 5 ready-made business assistants and drops a launcher on your Desktop. About 10 minutes, no commands.

After installation

Start Hermes from the Desktop launcher or run hermes --tui. Useful commands: hermes doctor (diagnose), hermes model (change provider), hermes gateway setup (connect Telegram or WhatsApp).