HERMES IDE

An AI-native terminal that understands your projects, predicts your commands, and executes autonomously.

Hermes IDE is a desktop terminal emulator that deeply integrates AI assistance into command-line workflows. It scans your projects to build context, suggests commands in real time, tracks errors and resolutions, and can execute tasks autonomously — all without leaving the terminal.

Platforms: macOS, Windows, Linux

Features

Agent mode for Claude (new in 1.0.0)

• Real chat for Claude — Claude sessions open in a rich chat interface by default, with thinking blocks, tool-call cards, and diff previews instead of a TUI in a terminal
• Real images — paste or drop images straight into the composer; Claude sees the actual pixels
• Persistent conversations — Claude sessions resume across app restarts
• Bring your own auth — uses your existing claude CLI auth (Pro, Max, or API key); Hermes never asks for tokens

Terminal

• Multi-session management — create, switch, and organize parallel terminal sessions
• Split panes — horizontal and vertical splits with drag-and-drop reordering
• WebGL-accelerated rendering — fast terminal with web links and auto-fit
• Execution timeline — visual history of every command with exit codes and durations
• Still excellent for everything else — Aider, Codex, Gemini, Copilot, Kiro, plain shells all run in classic Terminal mode, unchanged

Git Integration

• Built-in git panel — view staged, unstaged, and untracked files per project
• Stage / unstage / commit / push / pull — all from the sidebar
• Inline diff viewer — click any changed file to see a syntax-highlighted diff
• Robust authentication — SSH agent, SSH key files, Git Credential Manager, and token-based auth

AI Intelligence

• Ghost-text suggestions — real-time command completions from history and context
• Prompt Composer — write natural-language instructions for autonomous task execution
• Error pattern matching — learns error fingerprints and auto-applies known resolutions
• Stuck detection — monitors for hanging processes and offers interrupts

Project Awareness

• Automatic scanning — detects languages, frameworks, architecture, and conventions
• Context injection — attaches project knowledge to AI agents via a token budget
• Multi-project support — attach multiple project contexts to a single session

Productivity

• Command Palette — fuzzy search for any action
• Cost Dashboard — track token usage and estimated costs per model and session
• Memory & context pins — persist important facts, files, and patterns across sessions
• System notifications — get notified about long-running command completions

Download & Installation

Download the latest version for your platform from the official website:

https://www.hermes-ide.com/download

Pre-built installers are available for macOS (Apple Silicon & Intel), Windows, and Linux (.deb, .AppImage, .rpm).

Getting Started

Prerequisites (for building from source)

Platform-Specific Dependencies

• Linux:

  sudo apt install libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libappindicator3-dev librsvg2-dev patchelf

• macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install)
• Windows: Visual Studio Build Tools (with "Desktop development with C++" workload) + WebView2 Runtime

Setup

git clone https://github.com/hermes-hq/hermes-ide.git
cd hermes-ide
npm install
npm run tauri dev

Build for Production

npm run tauri build

Architecture

Hermes IDE is a Tauri 2 application:

┌──────────────────────────────────┐
│         React Frontend           │
│     (TypeScript, Vite)           │
├──────────────────────────────────┤
│         Tauri IPC Bridge         │
├──────────────────────────────────┤
│          Rust Backend            │
│   (PTY, SQLite, Project Scanner)  │
└──────────────────────────────────┘

Project Structure

hermes-ide/
├── src/                        # React/TypeScript frontend
│   ├── api/                    # Tauri IPC command wrappers
│   ├── components/             # UI components
│   ├── hooks/                  # Custom React hooks
│   ├── state/                  # State management (Context + useReducer)
│   ├── styles/                 # Per-component CSS
│   ├── terminal/               # Terminal pool & intelligence engine
│   ├── types/                  # TypeScript interfaces
│   └── utils/                  # Helper functions
├── src-tauri/                  # Rust backend
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── pty/                # PTY session management
│   │   ├── db/                 # SQLite persistence layer
│   │   ├── project/            # Project scanning & context assembly
│   │   └── workspace/          # Workspace detection
│   ├── Cargo.toml              # Rust dependencies
│   └── tauri.conf.json         # Tauri app configuration
├── public/                     # Static assets
├── package.json                # npm dependencies & scripts
├── vite.config.ts              # Vite build config
└── tsconfig.json               # TypeScript config

Documentation

• Architecture Guide — How the codebase is structured, data flow, and key design decisions
• Design Principles — What Hermes IDE is and isn't
• Governance — How decisions are made

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Before you start, please read:

• CONTRIBUTING.md — How to contribute, what we accept, PR process
• DESIGN_PRINCIPLES.md — Our anti-bloat philosophy (please read this)
• CLA.md — Contributor License Agreement (required for all contributions)
• Code of Conduct — Be kind

The #1 rule: Open an issue or discussion before writing code for any new feature. Bug fixes and docs don't require prior discussion.

Quick Start for Contributors

git clone https://github.com/hermes-hq/hermes-ide.git
cd hermes-ide
npm install
npm run tauri dev        # Full app with hot-reload
npx tsc --noEmit         # Type check
npm run test             # Run tests
cd src-tauri && cargo test  # Rust tests

License

Hermes IDE is source-available under the Business Source License 1.1 (BSL 1.1).

• You can: copy, modify, create derivative works, redistribute, and make non-production use freely. Production use is allowed as long as it does not compete with Hermes IDE.
• You cannot: use it to build a competing code editor, terminal emulator, or IDE offered to third parties.
• After 3 years from each release, the code converts to Apache License 2.0 — fully open source.

All contributions require signing the Contributor License Agreement.

See ARCHITECTURE.md for a detailed technical overview.

Security

Found a vulnerability? Please report it responsibly via [email protected]. See our Security Policy for details.

💛 Sponsors

Hermes IDE is built and maintained by a small team. If you find it useful, please consider sponsoring to help keep the project alive and accelerate development.

→ View all sponsorship tiers and become a sponsor

See SPONSORS.md for the full list of sponsors and details.

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