Aesir OSS

A local-first desktop shell for Hermes profiles, sessions, and transcript history.

Aesir OSS is for people who already run Hermes locally and want a cleaner shell around profile discovery, transcript imports, and day-to-day chat flows.

It discovers the Hermes installation already on your machine, reflects the real profiles and sessions attached to that install, and gives you both a web app and desktop shell for browsing, resuming, and continuing work.

Why Aesir OSS

• local-first by default
• generic Hermes install discovery instead of hardcoded profiles
• read-only imports for Hermes transcript history
• lightweight writable local state for GUI-created sessions
• one codebase for web and Electron desktop workflows

Feature set

• detects Hermes on disk, with HERMES_HOME and HERMES_BIN overrides
• discovers local Hermes profiles dynamically
• imports transcript history as read-only threads
• stores GUI-created sessions in a local JSON store
• supports Hermes CLI runtime, OpenRouter, or OpenAI-compatible fallback flows
• exposes usage summaries when profile auth data is available
• shows a first-run onboarding flow when Hermes is missing or incomplete

Who this is for

Aesir OSS is a good fit if you:

• already use Hermes locally
• want a calmer shell for browsing and resuming profile-backed work
• want an open, inspectable codebase you can adapt to your own setup

Requirements

• Node.js 20+
• Hermes installed locally
• macOS for the current desktop packaging workflow

Hermes docs:

• https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/

Quick start

npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000.

Environment

Copy the sample file if you need overrides:

cp .env.example .env.local

Available variables are documented in .env.example.

Common commands

npm test
npm run lint
npm run build
npm run desktop:bundle

Project docs

• Architecture
• Branding
• Releasing
• OSS audit
• Privacy
• Security
• Support
• Contributing
• Changelog

Release posture

• semver tags are expected for public releases
• issue labels are defined in .github/labels.yml
• GitHub release note categories are defined in .github/release.yml
• CI validates test, lint, and production build on pushes and pull requests

Project status

Aesir OSS is early, but contributor-ready. The current emphasis is:

• stability around Hermes discovery and session bridging
• contributor experience and release hygiene
• better cross-machine packaging and distribution

License

MIT. See LICENSE.