Run Hermes Agent inside Zomg and connect the native Hermes Desktop app to it as a remote backend. Hermes ships as a zpack: you zomg install it once, then zomg hermes create as many agent instances as you like, each a normal box with generated credentials and two published services. Hermes has two network surfaces:
  • OpenAI-compatible API gateway: 8642 (service api, published as hermes-api)
  • Desktop remote backend / dashboard: 9119 (service dashboard, published as hermes)
Hermes Desktop connects to the dashboard backend on 9119; that same published URL serves the Hermes web UI in a browser.

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Install the pack

zomg install ./zpacks/hermes        # local checkout
zomg install loopwork/zomg#zpacks/hermes   # or a GitHub subdirectory
Installing builds the Hermes base server-side from box-base and the pack’s base-init.sh, caches it, and aliases it zpack-hermes. A second install of unchanged content is a cached no-op.

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Create an agent

zomg hermes create my-agent
Create runs the standard orchestration: a per-instance data volume at /var/lib/hermes, generated env, then the two supervised services in name order — api starts and passes its /health gate first, then dashboard. The upstream HERMES_API_KEY and the dashboard basic-auth credentials are generated once per instance — there are no --dashboard-password or --api-key flags. Read them from the computed outputs (secrets are redacted until you ask): 
zomg hermes outputs my-agent                  # api_key/dashboard_password = ******** (secret)
zomg hermes outputs my-agent --show-secrets   # reveal the values
zomg hermes outputs my-agent --json           # programmatic retrieval (values included)
The outputs are api_base, api_key, model, dashboard_user, and dashboard_password. api_key and dashboard_password are secret — redacted in human output and in the event log, revealed only by --show-secrets or --json.

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Reach the published services

Both services are published and gated by default: the ingress sits behind your deployment’s auth, so a signed-in user reaches them and an anonymous request does not. Get the URLs from the instance or the dashboard’s Apps tab (the GET /v1/apps surface): 
zomg hermes show my-agent           # both publish URLs (hermes-api and hermes)
The Hermes Desktop remote URL is the dashboard publish URL (the hermes service on 9119).

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Connect with Hermes Desktop or the web UI

Open the dashboard publish URL from zomg hermes show in a browser and sign in with dashboard_user / dashboard_password to use the web UI. For the native app, install or open Hermes Desktop from the official Hermes docs, then:
  1. Open Settings.
  2. Go to Gateway.
  3. Set Remote URL to the dashboard publish URL from zomg hermes show.
  4. Click Sign in.
  5. Enter dashboard_user and dashboard_password from zomg hermes outputs --show-secrets.
  6. Save and reconnect.
You can launch Desktop with the URL preset — use the dashboard publish URL from zomg hermes show — and still sign in from the Gateway panel: 
HERMES_DESKTOP_REMOTE_URL=https://my-agent.example.com hermes desktop

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Use the Agent API in-project

Services in the same Zomg project reach the gateway directly by the instance’s in-cluster host — no ingress, no auth hop: 
curl -fsS \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $(zomg hermes outputs my-agent --json | jq -r '.outputs.api_key')" \
  http://my-agent:8642/v1/models

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Rotate the upstream key

Replace the generated HERMES_API_KEY with your own upstream key. The key rides stdin, never an argument — verb args are recorded in the attributed event log, and stdin is not: 
zomg hermes set-api-key my-agent < keyfile
set-api-key persists the new value via $ZOMG_ENV_OUT, which patches the instance’s Deployment env; under the Recreate strategy that restarts the pod, and the gateway re-reads the key on boot.

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Snapshot and fork

Hermes state lives in the /var/lib/hermes data volume, so lifecycle standard verbs capture config, sessions, memory, and dashboard auth: 
zomg hermes snapshot my-agent before-experiment   # checkpoint root + data volume
zomg hermes fork my-agent my-agent-copy           # clone volume; generated secrets copy with state
fork copies the generated env, so my-agent-copy keeps the same HERMES_API_KEY and dashboard credentials as its state. The rest of the lifecycle is the standard verb set — logs, status, stop, start, delete: 
zomg hermes logs my-agent
zomg hermes stop my-agent
zomg hermes delete my-agent          # removes the box and its data volume
Every verb execution is attributed and secret-redacted in the event log: 
zomg events --pack hermes            # who ran what, when — secrets shown as ***

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Security notes

Both Hermes publishes are gated by default: they sit behind your deployment’s auth, and --public on the publish is the explicit exception. That gate is the primary access control; the dashboard’s username/password is Hermes’ own second factor on top of it. Do not add --public to a dashboard reachable from the open internet unless you intend it — for public exposure, configure Hermes dashboard OAuth or keep the URL behind your deployment auth or a VPN.