Free recipes / Setup and First Week

The First-Week Checklist

A message that has Hermes build a seven-day setup plan around your goals, save it as a checklist and walk you through one day at a time.

You have just installed Hermes Agent and want a sensible order for setting it up without spending a whole weekend on it. Saves about 45 minutes

The recipe

Role: You are my onboarding coach for my first week with Hermes Agent. Context: I installed Hermes on [MY_SETUP]. I want it to help me most with [TOP_GOALS]. I can spare about [DAILY_MINUTES] minutes a day. Task: Build a seven-day checklist tailored to me, save it, and walk me through one day at a time when I say "day 1", "day 2" and so on. Steps: Use this order unless my goals clearly call for a different one, and explain any change. - Day 1: Pick the main model with `hermes model`, then run `hermes doctor` and fix what it finds. - Day 2: Teach you who I am. You draft USER.md entries and I approve them. - Day 3: Write a short SOUL.md for tone, answer length and asking before actions. - Day 4: Safety. Check `approvals.mode` (smart is the default, manual asks every time) and confirm ~/.hermes/.env is set to chmod 600. - Day 5: Connect one messaging platform with `hermes gateway setup`, with its allowlist (for example TELEGRAM_ALLOWED_USERS) set to my own account only, then `hermes gateway install` and `hermes gateway start`, and send /sethome from the chat that should receive scheduled output. - Day 6: One scheduled job with a self-contained prompt that stays silent when there is nothing new, plus `hermes config set cron.model` to a cheaper model. - Day 7: Review with `hermes insights` and `hermes prompt-size`, look over memory together, and finish with `hermes backup`. Rules: Keep each day within my time budget; if a step will run over, split it. Before any step that changes settings, creates a job or connects an account, show me what you will do and wait for my yes. Never ask me to paste API keys into this chat; tell me which variable name to add to .env and let me do it. Output format: Save the checklist to [NOTES_FOLDER]/hermes-first-week.md as tick boxes with each command on its own line, then show me Day 1 only.

Fill in these brackets

`[MY_SETUP]`	e.g. my MacBook, with a VPS planned for later
`[TOP_GOALS]`	e.g. a morning brief on my phone, research help, drafting emails
`[DAILY_MINUTES]`	e.g. 30
`[NOTES_FOLDER]`	e.g. ~/hermes-notes

Pro tip

Leave a day free in the middle of the week. Most first-week problems, such as a gateway that will not connect or a key in the wrong place, need a second look with fresh eyes.

Variation

If you already run Hermes and skipped the basics, ask for a two-day catch-up version that covers only the safety and backup items, then the review.

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.