Nous Research Adds Animated Pets to Hermes Agent Framework
In brief
- Nous Research added animated pet sprites to Hermes Agent that render in terminals and desktop apps
- Pets are purely cosmetic with zero impact on tokens, caching, or agent behavior
- Users can select from 3,200+ sprite options via petdex, an open-source community gallery
- Feature is disabled by default and installs with a single command
What the pets actually do
The pets have six animation states: idle when nothing's happening, running when a tool executes, in review mode when the model is thinking, plus wave, jump, and failed. In the terminal, Hermes renders the sprite at full fidelity if your setup supports graphics protocols like kitty, Ghostty, or WezTerm, or falls back to truecolor Unicode half-block rendering. In the desktop version, you can shift-click the pet to pop it out into a transparent, always-on-top window that stays visible while Hermes is minimized.
The desktop pet shows a speech bubble—"working…", "thinking…", "your turn"—and a mail icon when a task finishes while you're away.
Installation and sourcing
The sprites come from petdex, an open-source community gallery with more than 3,200 options to choose from. One install command—hermes pets install boba --select—drops the pet into your profile's directory and makes it active. The feature is off by default and stays dormant until you specifically go looking for it.
Rendering works across the CLI, TUI, and the official desktop app Nous Research launched earlier this month. The petdex gallery accepts community submissions, so the sprite catalog keeps growing.
Why this matters (or doesn't)
Nous Research specifies clearly that pets have no effect on prompt caching, tokens, or the agent's behavior. Purely cosmetic, zero side effects. Hermes Agent, released by Nous Research in February 2026, has crossed over 180,000 GitHub stars and features persistent memory, a self-improving skills loop, and multi-agent support, with messaging gateways across Telegram, Discord, and Slack.
The pet addition is a small flourish—a way to make the boring terminal a bit more human without any operational cost.
Frequently asked questions
Do the pets affect how Hermes Agent works?
No. Nous Research specifies that pets have no effect on prompt caching, tokens, or the agent's behavior. They're purely cosmetic with zero side effects.
How do I install a pet?
One command: `hermes pets install boba --select`. The pet installs to your profile directory and activates immediately. The feature is off by default, so you have to opt in.
Where do the pet sprites come from?
Petdex, an open-source community gallery with over 3,200 sprite options. The gallery accepts community submissions, so new pets are added regularly.
