Nous Portal for Hermes Agent

# Fresh install: log in, pick a model, set Nous as provider, enable the Tool Gateway
$hermes setup --portal
$
# Existing install: add Portal next to your other providers
$hermes model        # choose "Nous Portal"
$
# Check what is wired up
$hermes portal info

• Login is browser OAuth. The refresh token is stored in ~/.hermes/auth.json; no API key goes into .env.
• The login is shared across all your profiles and Bot Mode bots, so you sign in once.
• From inside a chat, /login starts the same sign-in (added with the free tier in v0.21.2).
• On a VPS or other headless machine the OAuth callback needs port forwarding — the official “OAuth over SSH” guide covers ssh -L.
• In Hermes Desktop, provider sign-in lives under Settings → Providers instead of the terminal.

As listed on portal.nousresearch.com on September 26, 2026 (prices in USD):

• Credits are the currency. Model tokens, Tool Gateway calls, and Hermes Cloud server time all draw from the same credit balance. The catalog shows per-million-token prices per model, including some $0 free models.
• The Tool Gateway is a paid-plan feature. The official docs add that some accounts also get a small free tool allowance, surfaced by a prompt on first use.
• The free plan arrived in v0.21.2 (September 11, 2026) together with a one-command sign-in and connector tools such as Gmail, Linear, and Notion.

With a paid plan, Hermes can route these tools through Nous instead of separate accounts and keys:

It is opt-in per tool: run hermes tools and pick Nous Subscription only where you want it. While a category is set to nous, any direct API key for that tool in .env is ignored; switch the category back and your key is used again. The gateway also works for messaging-gateway conversations such as Telegram.

Nous's own Hermes 4 chat models (Hermes-4-70B, Hermes-4-405B) are on Portal at discounted rates, but Nous's docs say they are not recommended inside Hermes Agent because they are tuned for chat and reasoning, not rapid tool-calling loops. The docs point agent work at frontier agentic models instead. Hermes also requires a model with at least 64K tokens of context.

Switch models mid-session with /model — no new credentials needed. Model choice by task, subscriptions you may already pay for, and auxiliary models are covered on Hermes models and providers.

This is our reading of the official plan and provider docs, not a measured cost comparison:

• Portal fits if you want one bill and one login for models and web search, images, TTS, and browser tools; if you are on native Windows (the docs call per-tool key setup the rough edge there); or if you plan to run Hermes Cloud, which bills from Portal credits.
• You may not need it if you already pay for a subscription Hermes can use (for example Claude Max with extra usage credits, a ChatGPT/Codex plan, GitHub Copilot, or SuperGrok), if you prefer pay-per-token API keys, or if you run models locally.
• Start free if you only want to see Hermes answer: the free plan needs no card and gives access to free models.

For what a month actually costs across models, tools, and hosting, see Hermes cost.

Manage or cancel your plan at portal.nousresearch.com/manage-subscription, or run hermes portal open.