an ambient agent

It textsyou first.

An always-on agent in one WhatsApp thread. It briefs, watches, nudges, and files — you open nothing.

07:00 check07:30 brief14:00 monitor17:45 log20:00 heartbeat07:00 check07:30 brief14:00 monitor17:45 log20:00 heartbeat
01the problem

You werethe cron job.

Assistants wait to be asked. Dashboards wait to be opened. Loops wait for you.

01

Assistants wait

02

Apps demand visits

03

Loops stay open

02a day with hermes

One ordinaryTuesday.

Played back the way it actually happens — in the chat.

Over one day Hermes sends 9 WhatsApp messages — a dashboard check, a morning brief, nutrition nudges, a quiet-day heartbeat — and receives 4 back: a closed loop, a hard question, a gym log, a reminder. One check runs and sends nothing. Apps opened: zero.

the idea

Ambient meansit goes both ways.

Crons wake it for you. Routers catch what you throw back. One thread carries it all.

wakechecktell youhear backclose the loop
03the switchboard

Reliability livesin code.

Five gates in plain code run before any model does. Send it something.

you → your own WhatsApp
1Fitness log
2Real question
3Capture
4Record a fact
5Loop-closer
Nothing matched
Claude worker
00-inbox/
memory.md
cheap brain

Make it reliable in code first. Then make the model cheap.

gateway log

send a message… the routers will narrate themselves here.

what comes back

the reply, the filed note, or the closed loop lands here.

04the worker lane

When it needsto actually think.

A matched message wakes a Claude Code worker. Tap through its lane.

“had an idea…”
voice
photo · whiteboard
text · voice · image — one chat, zero friction
Stage 01 · One thread, both directions

Capture

You message your own number on WhatsApp — text, a voice note, a photo of a whiteboard. No app to open, no folder to choose. The same thread carries Hermes' own pings back to you.

WhatsApp

No app, no folders. If you can send a text, you can reach it — and it can reach you.

05the guardrails

Locked downby allowlist.

Thirteen tools, enumerated. Everything else doesn't exist.

Allowlist, not blocklist

30 default tools cut to 13 — exactly its job.

A hook before every tool call

stray vault writes and code escapes blocked, in code.

An audit trail

every worker run logged — what ran, what it touched.

Confirmation gates

anything destructive waits for a yes.

You secure an agent by enumerating what it may do.

06the bill

The whole thing runson pocket change.

Code does the predictable work. The expensive model wakes only when it earns its keep.

hermes · monthlyone mac · one thread
cheap brainpennies
Claude workerR0 extra
routers + cronsR0
hostingR0
marginal total~R100/mo (~$5)

the trick isn't a bigger model — it's routing every job to the cheapest tool that clears the bar.

What it buys

Nothing to open

It lives in a chat you already have.

Loops close themselves

Replying to the brief writes the vault.

It compounds

Everything lands in one plain-text vault.

07what's next

It shipped pastits own roadmap.

The first version of this page made promises. They shipped.

shipped

It talks back

Ask anything — answered from your own notes.

shipped

It's proactive

Four crons ping you before you ask.

next

More senses

Calendar, email, voice — same thread.

horizon

A weekly retro agent

It reviews its week and proposes new crons.