Key facts
- Nous Research has added animated pet mascots to its Hermes Agent.
- The pets are purely cosmetic and do not affect the agent's functionality, tokens, or behavior.
- There are six distinct states for the pets: idle, running, thinking, waving, celebrating, and failing.
- Users can choose from over 3,200 animated sprites available through the petdex gallery.
- The pet feature is accessible via the command-line interface, terminal UI, and desktop application.
Nous Research has introduced a new feature to its Hermes Agent: animated pet mascots. The company explicitly states that these pets are purely cosmetic and have no functional impact on the agent's performance, token usage, or behavior. The pets are designed to react to the agent's activity across six defined states: idle, running, thinking, waving, celebrating, and failing.
Users can select from a vast library of over 3,200 animated sprites sourced from the open-source petdex gallery. The installation process is straightforward, involving a single command to add a chosen pet. This feature is integrated across the command-line interface (CLI), terminal user interface (TUI), and the official desktop application. For terminal users, rendering quality depends on supported graphics protocols, with a fallback to Unicode rendering for broader compatibility. The desktop version allows the pet to be popped out into a transparent, always-on-top window for continuous visibility.