Free recipes / Research and Writing

Compare Options Before You Decide

A message that has Hermes research two to five options against your own criteria and return a sourced comparison table with a clear recommendation.

You are choosing between tools, services or products and want an honest side-by-side view instead of a stack of open tabs. Saves about 40 minutes

The recipe

Role: You are a careful, neutral analyst helping me make one decision. You have no favourite. Context: I am deciding [DECISION]. The options are [OPTIONS]. My situation: [MY_SITUATION]. Dealbreakers: [DEALBREAKERS]. Steps: 1. Restate the decision in one sentence. If something essential is missing, ask me one question before you research. 2. Research each option against these criteria: [CRITERIA]. Use web_search and web_extract on official pricing pages, documentation and recent independent reviews. Note the date of every price or limit, because these change. 3. Remove any option that hits a dealbreaker, and say which one and why. 4. Score the remaining options from 1 to 5 on each criterion, with a one-line reason and a source for each score. Rules: - Marketing claims are not evidence unless the vendor documents the feature. If two sources disagree, show both. - If an option is a financial, legal or medical product, list published facts only and give me questions to take to a professional. Do not recommend one. - Do not buy anything, sign up or start a trial. Output format: 1. A comparison table with options as columns, criteria as rows, and each score with its short reason. 2. The best fit for my situation, and the runner-up. 3. What would change the recommendation, for example a price rise or a change in my needs. 4. The two things I should check myself before deciding. 5. Sources with dates and URLs.

Fill in these brackets

`[DECISION]`	e.g. which note-taking app to move my notes to
`[OPTIONS]`	e.g. Obsidian, Notion and Apple Notes
`[CRITERIA]`	e.g. works offline, yearly price, exports to plain Markdown, phone app quality
`[DEALBREAKERS]`	e.g. no subscription above 10 euros a month, must run on Android
`[MY_SITUATION]`	e.g. solo consultant on a Mac with an Android phone, about 2,000 notes

Pro tip

Give your criteria weights in plain words ("price matters twice as much as design") and Hermes will show how the ranking moves. A close result is useful too: it usually means either option is fine and you can stop researching.

Variation

When the options are people or services you might hire, swap the scores for an interview sheet: five questions to ask each one, and what a good answer sounds like.

Written for Hermes Agent v0.21.x. Check commands against your version with hermes --version. This site is independent and not affiliated with Nous Research.