Hermes Agent Tutorial: Build Your First AI Research Workflow
Build a complete AI research workflow in Hermes Agent with Felo Skills — from live search to automated knowledge base.
Hermes Agent Tutorial: Build Your First AI Research Workflow
Most AI tools answer one question at a time. Hermes Agent can run an entire research workflow — searching live sources, extracting content from specific pages, tracking social signals, and organizing everything into a searchable archive.
This tutorial walks you through building your first AI research workflow from scratch. By the end, you will have a working system that researches topics automatically, stores findings in a knowledge base, and gets smarter over time.
What you will build:
- Live web research with Felo Search
- Webpage content extraction with Felo Web Fetch
- Social media monitoring with Felo X Search
- Knowledge base storage with Felo LiveDoc
Prerequisites
You need:
- A computer running Linux, macOS, or Windows (with WSL)
- Basic command line familiarity
- An API key for an LLM provider (OpenAI, Anthropic, or others)
No coding experience required.
Step 1: Install Hermes Agent
Hermes Agent installs with one command. Open your terminal and run:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash
The installer will:
1. Download Hermes Agent
2. Set up the Python environment
3. Create configuration directories
4. Add the hermes command to your PATH
Verify installation:
hermes --version
You should see the version number. If not, restart your terminal and try again.
Step 2: Configure your LLM provider
Hermes Agent works with any LLM provider. This tutorial uses OpenAI, but you can use Anthropic, Google, Ollama, or others.
Create a configuration file:
hermes config init
Add your API key:
hermes config set provider openai
hermes config set openai.api_key YOUR_API_KEY_HERE
Test the connection:
hermes chat "Hello, are you working?"
If you see a response, your setup is working.
Step 3: Install Felo Skills
Felo Skills add research capabilities to Hermes Agent. Install all 9 skills with one command:
bash <(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Felo-Inc/felo-skills/main/scripts/install-hermes.sh)
The installer automatically:
- Downloads all Felo Skills
- Registers them with Hermes Agent
- Verifies installation
hermes skills list | grep -i felo
You should see:
- Felo Search
- Felo Web Fetch
- Felo X Search
- Felo LiveDoc
- Felo Slides
- Felo Content to Slides
- Felo YouTube Subtitling
- Website Screenshot Agent
- Felo SuperAgent
Step 4: Your first research query with Felo Search
Felo Search gives Hermes Agent real-time web search with source attribution.
Start a research session:
hermes chat
Run your first search:
Use Felo Search to find the latest developments in AI agent frameworks released in 2026. Focus on open-source projects with more than 10,000 GitHub stars.
Hermes Agent will:
1. Call Felo Search
2. Query multiple sources
3. Synthesize results with citations
4. Return a structured answer
What makes Felo Search different:
- Returns synthesized answers, not just links
- Includes source attribution
- Flags outdated information
- Works across languages
Which of these frameworks has the best documentation?
Hermes Agent maintains context, so it knows you are asking about the frameworks from the previous search.
Step 5: Extract specific pages with Felo Web Fetch
Felo Search gives you the broad picture. Felo Web Fetch lets you go deep on specific sources.
Extract content from a specific URL:
Use Felo Web Fetch to extract the content from https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent and summarize the key features.
Felo Web Fetch will:
1. Fetch the page
2. Strip navigation, ads, and boilerplate
3. Return clean Markdown
4. Let Hermes Agent analyze it
Extract and compare multiple pages:
Fetch these three competitor pricing pages and create a comparison table:
- https://example-a.com/pricing
- https://example-b.com/pricing
- https://example-c.com/pricing
Extract plan names, monthly prices, and key feature differences.
Hermes Agent will fetch all three pages and build a comparison table automatically.
Step 6: Track social signals with Felo X Search
Web search and page extraction cover published content. Felo X Search covers the conversation layer — what people are actually saying on social media.
Monitor a topic:
Use Felo X Search to find what people are saying about Hermes Agent on X this week. Summarize the main themes.
Track sentiment around an event:
Search X for reactions to the latest OpenAI announcement. Categorize responses as positive, negative, or neutral, and note the most common concerns.
Competitive social listening:
Search X for mentions of [competitor name] and [your product name] in the same thread. What are people comparing?
Step 7: Build a complete research workflow
Now chain all three skills together into a single workflow.
Example: Competitive analysis workflow
I need a competitive analysis of AI presentation tools. Here is what I need:
1. Use Felo Search to find the top 5 AI presentation tools available right now
2. Use Felo Web Fetch to extract the feature pages of each tool
3. Use Felo X Search to find user sentiment about each tool on social media
4. Combine everything into a competitive analysis report with:
- Feature comparison table
- Pricing comparison
- Social sentiment summary
- Strengths and weaknesses of each tool
Hermes Agent will execute each step, maintain context throughout, and produce a single consolidated report.
Step 8: Organize everything with Felo LiveDoc
Research is only useful if you can find it later. Felo LiveDoc turns your research output into a searchable knowledge base.
Create a knowledge base from your research:
Take all the competitive analysis we just completed and add it to a LiveDoc collection called "AI Presentation Tools — Q2 2026." Organize it by company name.
Build a knowledge base over time:
Each time you do research, add the results to your LiveDoc collection:
Add today's research findings to the existing "Market Intelligence" LiveDoc collection. Tag entries with the date and topic.
Query your knowledge base:
Search the "AI Presentation Tools" LiveDoc for any mentions of real-time collaboration features. Which tools support it?
Because Hermes Agent has persistent memory, it remembers your LiveDoc collections across sessions.
Step 9: Automate your research workflow
The real power shows up when you automate recurring research tasks.
Set up a weekly competitive intelligence workflow:
Run my weekly competitive intelligence workflow:
1. SEARCH: Use Felo Search to find any new product launches, funding rounds, or major updates from these competitors: [Company A], [Company B], [Company C]
2. DEEP DIVE: For any significant announcements found, use Felo Web Fetch to extract the full press release or blog post
3. SOCIAL: Use Felo X Search to check social media reactions to any major announcements
4. ARCHIVE: Add all findings to the "Weekly Competitive Intel" LiveDoc collection, tagged with today's date
5. SUMMARY: Generate a 1-page executive summary with:
- Key developments this week
- Competitive implications
- Recommended actions
Make it recurring with Felo SuperAgent:
Set up a recurring workflow using Felo SuperAgent: every Monday at 9am, run the weekly competitive intelligence workflow above and send the summary to my Telegram.
Now your research pipeline runs on autopilot.
What you just built
You now have a complete AI research system that:
✅ Searches live web sources with Felo Search
✅ Extracts content from specific pages with Felo Web Fetch
✅ Monitors social media with Felo X Search
✅ Stores findings in a searchable knowledge base with Felo LiveDoc
✅ Runs automatically on a schedule with Felo SuperAgent
✅ Gets smarter over time through Hermes Agent's self-improvement loop
Tips for effective research workflows
Start narrow, then expand. Begin with Felo Search on a focused topic. Use the results to identify which pages to fetch with Web Fetch and which social conversations to track with X Search.
Use LiveDoc early. Add findings to LiveDoc as you go. Small, frequent additions are easier to organize than one massive dump.
Chain skills in the same conversation. When you use Felo Search, then Web Fetch, then X Search in the same thread, Hermes Agent understands how each piece relates to the others.
Let the agent improve. Hermes Agent's self-improvement loop means it gets better at your specific research patterns over time. The more you run these workflows, the more efficiently the agent executes them.
Combine with output skills. Once your research is done, turn it into a presentation with Felo Slides:
Take the competitive analysis we just built and create a 12-slide deck for the leadership team. Focus on market positioning and recommended actions.
Common issues and solutions
"Felo Search is not responding"
- Check your internet connection
- Verify Felo Skills are installed:
hermes skills list | grep -i felo - Restart Hermes Agent:
hermes restart
- Some websites block automated access
- Try a different URL or use the website's API if available
- Check if the page requires JavaScript (Web Fetch works best with static content)
- Create the collection first:
Create a new LiveDoc collection called "Research" - Check existing collections:
List all my LiveDoc collections
- Hermes Agent maintains context within a session
- To persist across sessions, explicitly save to LiveDoc
- Use
hermes memory saveto checkpoint important information
Next steps
Now that you have a working research workflow, you can:
1. Add more skills — Explore the Felo Skills catalog for additional capabilities
2. Build content workflows — Use Felo Slides and Felo YouTube Subtitling to turn research into deliverables
3. Automate monitoring — Set up Felo SuperAgent to run research workflows on a schedule
4. Connect messaging — Configure Telegram or Discord so you can research from your phone
Resources
- Felo Skills for Hermes Agent — Complete skill documentation
- Hermes Agent Official Docs — Installation and configuration
- Felo AI — Try Felo tools directly in your browser
Get started with Felo's research skills for Hermes Agent → felo.ai/skills/hermes-agent