Evidence record / hermes-agent
A dated record of one change, kept so the writing that cites it can be checked. Compiled from the sources listed below by the research run, not written for reading. The judgment lives in the issues that cite it, below.
2026-08-17-hermes-agent-bot-mode-ships-bundled-and-on-by-default-and-the-bot-to-bot-protocol
Bot Mode ships bundled and on by default, and the bot-to-bot protocol moves into the core system prompt.
The Hermes-Bot-Mode plugin, previously a standalone install, is now bundled in the desktop app and enabled by default (live-disable via Settings -> Plugins). More consequential than the bundling: the bot-to-bot messaging protocol moves out of user SOUL.md files and into a core stable-tier system-prompt section, so it covers every session of every profile -- including headless hermes -p <bot> chat sessions that teammates start. A tools/bot_mode_probe.py gates the injection behind agent.bot_mode_protocol (default on) and keeps it silent unless a profile carries ui_meta['hermes-bots'] or already has the legacy SOUL section; the section is cached per process+home and byte-stable across rebuilds, adding +916 bytes only on a managed home. profiles.list gains a bot_mode_protocol capability flag so the plugin can stop writing to SOUL.md on gateways that support it. Related work the same day added cross-machine bot DMs (hermes peer, #88725) and Discord-style group chats.
Channel: tagged-release. Ancestry: merge_commit_sha 8236b417713dd3f4a6bea0ff26cc5f64a1d3b8c4; compare/8236b417...v2026.8.16.2 -> status=ahead, ahead_by=204, behind_by=0 (ancestor of stable tag v2026.8.16.2).
Operator consequence: Watch this one rather than adopt it. A default-on plugin that injects an inter-agent messaging protocol into every session's system prompt is a meaningful change to what your agents are told they can do, even when you never open the Bots panel. Verify agent.bot_mode_protocol and check whether your profiles carry the ui_meta key; if you run headless bot profiles, the protocol is now in their prompt too.
Receipt
Finding metadata
Run: 2026-08-17-weekly-digest-2026-08-10_2026-08-17-frontier-v0
Finding ID: 2026-08-17-hermes-agent-bot-mode-ships-bundled-and-on-by-default-and-the-bot-to-bot-protocol
Source links
Primary links, including exact changelog lines when available.
Versioned source: run artifact