Busabase × Nous Research Hermes Agent

Knowledge base for Hermes Agent

Hermes Agent remembers across sessions and writes its own Skills. That knowledge lives on one machine, in a few small files. Busabase gives it, and every other agent you run, a shared place for decisions, evidence and procedures, where every change has a source and a history.

Connect Hermes Agent Official Hermes docs

Hermes already remembers. The gap is sharing it.

Hermes keeps two built-in memory files in ~/.hermes/memories/: MEMORY.md for its own notes (limit 2,200 characters) and USER.md for your profile (limit 1,375 characters). They are loaded into the system prompt at session start. That is a good scratchpad, and it is deliberately small. Skills live in ~/.hermes/skills/ on that machine.

One agent, one machine

What Hermes learns stays in its own profile. Your other agents, and your teammates, never see it.

Small by design

With a 2,200-character memory file, customer facts, runbooks and project decisions do not fit. They need a real home.

Self-written Skills need a trail

Hermes can create, update and delete its own Skills with the skill_manage tool. A shared Skill should show who changed it, when, and how to undo it.

Busabase Skill node with its agent prompts — A Skill in Busabase: one procedure, with the prompts every connected agent reads.

Where each kind of knowledge belongs

Keep Hermes' own features doing what they do well. Put what other people and agents need in Busabase.

Layer	What it is in Hermes	What Busabase adds
Memory	MEMORY.md and USER.md, small notes injected at session start.	Longer facts as Base records with fields, a source and field-level history, searchable by every agent.
Skills	Folders with a SKILL.md in ~/.hermes/skills/, created by you, installed from the Skills Hub, or written by the agent.	Team Skills uploaded once. Every agent reads the same version, and editing a Skill is a Change Request you can inspect or revert.
Curator	A background pass that archives unused agent-created Skills; it never auto-deletes.	A visible history on the shared copies, so a pruned or rewritten Skill can be compared and restored.
Docs and files	Whatever is in the project folder.	Docs, files and tables in one workspace tree, with roles and node permissions.

Three ways to connect Hermes Agent

Pick one. All of them reach the same workspace.

Let Hermes set it up

Paste: Read https://busabase.com/SETUP_SKILL.md and set up Busabase for me. Hermes signs you in, creates a first Base and installs the Busabase skills for later sessions.

MCP server

Hermes reads MCP servers from the mcp_servers key in ~/.hermes/config.yaml. Add the Busabase endpoint, then complete OAuth with hermes mcp login.

CLI and API

If Hermes can run a terminal, it can use busabase-cli or the OpenAPI surface, with the same permission levels.

Connect Busabase over MCP

Install Hermes Agent if you have not: curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash
Add the Busabase server to the mcp_servers section of ~/.hermes/config.yaml (below).
Run hermes mcp login busabase, choose the Busabase account, permission level and expiry in the browser, then hermes mcp test busabase.
In a chat, run /reload-mcp if the session was already open, and ask Hermes to read your workspace.

# ~/.hermes/config.yaml
mcp_servers:
  busabase:
    url: "https://busabase.com/api/mcp"

Busabase tools then appear in Hermes as mcp_busabase_*. The exact OAuth behaviour is described on the Hermes connect page and in the MCP guide.

Every write is a Change Request, and review is yours to choose

When Hermes writes to Busabase, the change is a Change Request: a message, a field-level before and after, the author, the key it came through, and a history you can roll back. Merging never overwrites.

With a write key the change merges at once and stays reversible. Give a specific agent a proposal-only key and its changes wait in the Inbox for a person. Hermes has the same idea on its own side: set skills.write_approval to true and agent-written Skill changes are staged under /skills pending.

A Busabase Change Request showing a before and after diff of a record — A Change Request: the message, the before and after of a record body, and the review actions.

Find it again, from any agent

One grep searches files, Doc bodies, Base records and agent prompts and returns the matching line with context. Hermes, Claude Code or a teammate in the browser reads the same results. Tables open as table, gallery, kanban, calendar or Gantt views.

A Busabase Base as a table with saved views — A Base shown as a table, with columns and saved views.

Questions about Hermes Agent and Busabase

Does Busabase replace Hermes' MEMORY.md?

No. MEMORY.md and USER.md stay as Hermes' small private notes. Busabase holds what should outlive one machine or be read by other agents.

Can Hermes edit shared Skills?

Yes, with a key that allows it. The edit is a Change Request with a diff and history. If you want a person to look first, use a proposal-only key for that agent.

What does the Curator touch?

According to the Hermes docs it works on agent-created Skills, moves unused ones to ~/.hermes/skills/.archive/, and never auto-deletes. Skills you keep in Busabase are separate copies with their own history.

Is review required?

No. Review is optional. A write key merges immediately; a proposal-only key waits in the Inbox. Every change is attributed and reversible either way. How Change Requests work.

Do I need MCP?

No. Hermes can also follow the one-line setup instruction or use the CLI. MCP is the choice when you want Busabase as native tools.

Give Hermes a memory your team can share

Connect it, ask it to read a Skill, and look at the first Change Request it makes.

Connect Hermes Agent

Hermes sources: Hermes Agent docs, MCP, Memory, Skills, Curator