Skip to content

toolsets-reference.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
163 lines (129 loc) · 10.1 KB

toolsets-reference.md

File metadata and controls

163 lines (129 loc) · 10.1 KB
sidebar_position 4
title Toolsets Reference
description Reference for Hermes core, composite, platform, and dynamic toolsets

Toolsets Reference

Toolsets are named bundles of tools that control what the agent can do. They're the primary mechanism for configuring tool availability per platform, per session, or per task.

How Toolsets Work

Every tool belongs to exactly one toolset. When you enable a toolset, all tools in that bundle become available to the agent. Toolsets come in three kinds:

  • Core — A single logical group of related tools (e.g., file bundles read_file, write_file, patch, search_files)
  • Composite — Combines multiple core toolsets for a common scenario (e.g., debugging bundles file, terminal, and web tools)
  • Platform — A complete tool configuration for a specific deployment context (e.g., hermes-cli is the default for interactive CLI sessions)

Configuring Toolsets

Per-session (CLI)

hermes chat --toolsets web,file,terminal
hermes chat --toolsets debugging        # composite — expands to file + terminal + web
hermes chat --toolsets all              # everything

Per-platform (config.yaml)

toolsets:
  - hermes-cli          # default for CLI
  # - hermes-telegram   # override for Telegram gateway

Interactive management

hermes tools                            # curses UI to enable/disable per platform

Or in-session:

/tools list
/tools disable browser
/tools enable homeassistant

Core Toolsets

Toolset Tools Purpose
browser browser_back, browser_cdp, browser_click, browser_console, browser_dialog, browser_get_images, browser_navigate, browser_press, browser_scroll, browser_snapshot, browser_type, browser_vision, web_search Core browser automation. Includes web_search as a fallback for quick lookups. browser_cdp and browser_dialog are gated at runtime — registered only when a CDP endpoint is reachable at session start (via /browser connect, browser.cdp_url config, Browserbase, or Camofox). browser_dialog works together with the pending_dialogs and frame_tree fields that browser_snapshot adds when a CDP supervisor is attached.
clarify clarify Ask the user a question when the agent needs clarification.
code_execution execute_code Run Python scripts that call Hermes tools programmatically.
cronjob cronjob Schedule and manage recurring tasks.
debugging composite (file + terminal + web) Debug bundle — file, process/terminal, web extract/search.
delegation delegate_task Spawn isolated subagent instances for parallel work.
discord discord Core Discord text/embed/DM actions (gateway-only). Active on the hermes-discord toolset.
discord_admin discord_admin Discord moderation (bans, role changes, channel management). Active on the hermes-discord toolset; requires the bot to hold the relevant Discord permissions.
feishu_doc feishu_doc_read Read Feishu/Lark document content. Used by the Feishu document-comment intelligent-reply handler.
feishu_drive feishu_drive_add_comment, feishu_drive_list_comments, feishu_drive_list_comment_replies, feishu_drive_reply_comment Feishu/Lark drive comment operations. Scoped to the comment agent; not exposed on hermes-cli or other messaging toolsets.
file patch, read_file, search_files, write_file File reading, writing, searching, and editing.
homeassistant ha_call_service, ha_get_state, ha_list_entities, ha_list_services Smart home control via Home Assistant. Only available when HASS_TOKEN is set.
computer_use computer_use Background macOS desktop control via cua-driver — does not steal cursor/focus. Works with any tool-capable model. macOS only; requires cua-driver on $PATH.
image_gen image_generate Text-to-image generation via FAL.ai (with opt-in OpenAI / xAI backends).
video_gen video_generate Text-to-video and image-to-video via plugin-registered backends (xAI Grok-Imagine, FAL.ai Veo 3.1 / Pixverse v6 / Kling O3). Pass image_url to animate an image; omit it for text-to-video.
kanban kanban_block, kanban_comment, kanban_complete, kanban_create, kanban_heartbeat, kanban_link, kanban_show Multi-agent coordination tools — only registered when the agent is spawned by the kanban dispatcher (HERMES_KANBAN_TASK env set). Lets workers mark tasks done with structured handoffs, block for human input, heartbeat during long ops, comment on threads, and (for orchestrators) fan out into child tasks.
memory memory Persistent cross-session memory management.
messaging send_message Send messages to other platforms (Telegram, Discord, etc.) from within a session.
moa mixture_of_agents Multi-model consensus via Mixture of Agents.
safe image_generate, vision_analyze, web_extract, web_search (via includes) Read-only research + media generation. No file writes, no terminal, no code execution.
search web_search Web search only (without extract).
session_search session_search Search past conversation sessions.
skills skill_manage, skill_view, skills_list Skill CRUD and browsing.
spotify spotify_albums, spotify_devices, spotify_library, spotify_playback, spotify_playlists, spotify_queue, spotify_search Native Spotify control (playback, queue, search, playlists, albums, library). Registered by the bundled spotify plugin.
terminal process, terminal Shell command execution and background process management.
todo todo Task list management within a session.
tts text_to_speech Text-to-speech audio generation.
vision vision_analyze Image analysis via vision-capable models.
video video_analyze Video analysis and understanding tools (opt-in, not in the default toolset — add explicitly via --toolsets).
web web_extract, web_search Web search and page content extraction.
x_search x_search Search X (Twitter) posts and threads via xAI's built-in x_search Responses tool. Off by default; opt in via hermes tools. Schema only registered when xAI credentials (SuperGrok OAuth or XAI_API_KEY) are configured.
yuanbao yb_query_group_info, yb_query_group_members, yb_search_sticker, yb_send_dm, yb_send_sticker Yuanbao DM/group actions and sticker search. Registered only on hermes-yuanbao.

Platform Toolsets

Platform toolsets define the complete tool configuration for a deployment target. Most messaging platforms use the same set as hermes-cli:

Toolset Differences from hermes-cli
hermes-cli Full toolset — the default for interactive CLI sessions. Includes file, terminal, web, browser, memory, skills, vision, image_gen, todo, tts, delegation, code_execution, cronjob, session_search, clarify, and safe (read-only) bundles plus the standard messaging tools.
hermes-acp Drops clarify, cronjob, image_generate, send_message, text_to_speech, and all four Home Assistant tools. Focused on coding tasks in IDE context.
hermes-api-server Drops clarify, send_message, and text_to_speech. Keeps everything else — suitable for programmatic access where user interaction isn't possible.
hermes-cron Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-telegram Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-discord Adds discord and discord_admin on top of hermes-cli.
hermes-slack Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-whatsapp Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-signal Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-matrix Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-mattermost Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-email Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-sms Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-bluebubbles Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-dingtalk Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-feishu Adds the five feishu_doc_* / feishu_drive_* tools (only used by the document-comment handler, not the regular chat adapter).
hermes-qqbot Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-wecom Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-wecom-callback Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-weixin Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-yuanbao Adds the five yb_* tools (DM/group/sticker) on top of hermes-cli.
hermes-homeassistant Same as hermes-cli (the Home Assistant tools are already present by default and activate when HASS_TOKEN is set).
hermes-webhook Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-gateway Internal gateway orchestrator toolset — union of every hermes-<platform> toolset; used when the gateway needs to accept any message source.

Dynamic Toolsets

MCP server toolsets

Each configured MCP server generates a mcp-<server> toolset at runtime. For example, if you configure a github MCP server, a mcp-github toolset is created containing all tools that server exposes.

# config.yaml
mcp_servers:
  github:
    command: npx
    args: ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-github"]

This creates a mcp-github toolset you can reference in --toolsets or platform configs.

Plugin toolsets

Plugins can register their own toolsets via ctx.register_tool() during plugin initialization. These appear alongside built-in toolsets and can be enabled/disabled the same way.

Custom toolsets

Define custom toolsets in config.yaml to create project-specific bundles:

toolsets:
  - hermes-cli
custom_toolsets:
  data-science:
    - file
    - terminal
    - code_execution
    - web
    - vision

Wildcards

  • all or * — expands to every registered toolset (built-in + dynamic + plugin)

Relationship to hermes tools

The hermes tools command provides a curses-based UI for toggling individual tools on or off per platform. This operates at the tool level (finer than toolsets) and persists to config.yaml. Disabled tools are filtered out even if their toolset is enabled.

See also: Tools Reference for the complete list of individual tools and their parameters.