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Hermes TUI via the Web Terminal

Vi (pre-installed with Hermes-Agent) has two entry points:

  1. Web dashboard (general use): point-and-click in a browser
  2. TUI (advanced use / full Hermes control): a black-on-white text terminal where you type commands and see ANSI-styled responses

This page shows you how to enter the TUI through admin panel’s built-in web terminal, so you can experience the new Hermes v0.12 features (LaTeX math rendering, /resume to switch history, /reload for env hot-reload, auto-resume last session, mouse-wheel scrolling).

What is a TUI?

TUI = Text User Interface. Not a web page — it’s a black-on-white character display, the kind of “hacker screen” you may have seen in movies. In practice it’s actually very pleasant to use — fast, no web rendering overhead, full control over Hermes.

Why use the TUI?

The web dashboard is good for:

  • Configuring messaging platforms
  • Looking at usage charts
  • General chat

But some tasks are better in the TUI:

What you want to doWhy TUI is better
Have a deep conversation with ViNo render delay; characters appear as they arrive
See how Vi thinksTUI surfaces the thinking trace
Run a quick script and check the resultOne command instead of clicking through dashboard panels
Bulk copy/paste conversationNative terminal selection beats web copy
Switch between many sessions/resume is faster than navigating UI

Step-by-step: opening the TUI

Step 1: Open the web terminal in admin panel

  1. Sign in to admin panel
  2. Switch to the hm-3 (Vi) container
  3. At the bottom of the home view, find the Terminal button
  4. Click it — a full-screen black-on-white panel opens (this is the web terminal)

📷 Screenshot pending (the web terminal button and hm-3 home view have not been captured yet).

Step 2: Run hermes inside the container

The web terminal opens at a $ prompt:

root@hm-3:/#

Type:

hermes

Press Enter. After a few seconds the TUI interactive interface appears:

┌─ Hermes Agent v0.12.0 ──────────────────────────────────┐
│                                                         │
│  > Auto-resume last session                             │
│                                                         │
│  Last session: 3 hours ago                              │
│  Last message: "Summarize this week's customer mail"    │
│                                                         │
│  Press Enter to continue, or type /new to start fresh   │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

> _

📷 Screenshot pending (the hermes TUI startup screen inside the web terminal has not been captured yet).

What you’ll feel after the v0.12 upgrade

The features below are new in v0.12 and visible the moment you open the TUI:

1. Auto-resume last session

Before v0.11: every hermes invocation started fresh. You had to remember hermes resume to pick up the previous chat.

v0.12 onward: TUI asks if you want to resume on entry. Press Enter to continue, type /new to start fresh.

The UX improvement is most obvious for “quick-look-something-up” web-terminal sessions.

2. LaTeX math rendering

Ask Vi a math question and the response renders formulas in LaTeX style:

> Solve this integral: ∫(0 to ∞) e^(-x²) dx

Vi: This is the Gaussian integral. The result is:
    
        ∞
       ∫  e^(-x²) dx = √π/2
       0

Integrals, square roots, fractions are drawn with stylized ANSI characters — much more readable than plain text.

3. /resume to switch sessions

Type /resume:

> /resume

Past sessions:

  ▶ Summarize this week's customer mail   (3 hours ago)
    Write a Python script to fetch data   (yesterday)
    Analyze this CSV                       (3 days ago)
    Vi persona settings discussion         (last week)

↑↓ navigate · Enter resume · d delete · q cancel
  • Arrow keys to pick the session you want
  • Enter to resume
  • Press d to delete that session (new in v0.12 — previously you had to delete the file from outside)

4. /reload env vars (without quitting the TUI)

If you change .env settings (e.g. swap an API key), before v0.11 you had to quit the TUI and re-enter.

v0.12 onward: just type /reload inside the TUI — environment variables hot-reload, your conversation session keeps going.

> /reload

✓ Environment variables reloaded
  - OPENAI_API_KEY: updated
  - SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID: updated

5. Mouse-wheel scrolling

In the web terminal, scroll the TUI content up/down with your mouse wheel (to look back at earlier conversation). Before v0.12 you had to use arrow keys or PageUp/PageDown.

Common scenarios

Scenario 1: Deep conversation with Vi

> I want to design a customer churn analysis flow. Walk me through
  data prep, model selection, evaluation metrics step by step.

Vi: OK, starting from step one —
    [full reasoning trace shown]
    
    1. Data preparation ...
    2. Feature engineering ...
    3. Model selection ...
    4. Evaluation metrics ...
    
    Which step would you like to dive into first?

The TUI surfaces Vi’s “thinking trace” so you can see the reasoning — very useful for prompt engineering.

Scenario 2: Run a quick script

> In Python, sum all primes from 1 to 1000

Vi: [executing...]

    Result:
    Prime count: 168
    Total: 76127

    Took 0.04s. Want me to print the prime list?

Scenario 3: Vi controlling Spotify

v0.12 added native Spotify support. From the TUI:

> Play Daft Punk's Random Access Memories

Vi: Found the album "Random Access Memories" (2013) on Spotify.
    Active device: MacBook Pro speakers
    
    ▶ Give Life Back to Music (0:10 / 4:35)

Exiting the TUI

Two ways:

MethodAction
/quitType /quit inside the TUI and press Enter
Ctrl + DHit it on the keyboard

The conversation is saved on exit (next time you open the TUI, it auto-resumes — unless you manually /new).

After exit you’re back at the container shell. Type exit to close the web terminal panel (admin panel will hide it).

Advanced

hermes -z (one-shot, no TUI)

If you just want to ask one question and skip the full interactive mode:

hermes -z "Weather in Taipei today"
# Vi answers and exits — no TUI

Good for shell scripts that need to call Vi.

/mouse to toggle mouse mode

If your mouse wheel doesn’t behave well in some terminal environments, type /mouse inside the TUI to toggle Hermes’s mouse handling mode.

Multiple parallel sessions

Open multiple web-terminal panels (admin panel allows multiple tabs). Each panel runs its own hermes with an independent session.

Why use the web terminal instead of SSH?

Both work:

Entry pointProsCons
admin panel web terminalNo SSH commands to remember; works in any browser; admin authentication built inSlightly slower than SSH
SSH into the hostFast; best for users already comfortable with terminalYou manage your own SSH keys

Beginner / occasional / don’t want to manage SSH keys: use the web terminal. Power user / daily use / already terminal-fluent: SSH directly, it’s faster.

FAQ

TUI opened but nothing happens?

  1. Confirm container is Running: admin panel → hm-3 → Home
  2. Reopen the web terminal panel (close + reopen)
  3. Type exit to drop back to container shell — does the $ prompt respond?
  4. If even the shell is unresponsive, restart the container: admin panel → hm-3 → Restart

LaTeX math shows garbled characters?

The web terminal (xterm.js) supports ANSI + Unicode and shouldn’t garble. If it does:

  • Try a different browser (Chrome / Edge / Firefox all support it)
  • Check the terminal font setting in admin panel

Conversation didn’t save after I closed the TUI?

Hermes auto-saves on /quit or Ctrl+D. If you force-closed the web terminal panel (without /quit), the save may have been interrupted. Next time you open the TUI, use /resume to look for the session.

I edited .env but /reload didn’t take effect?

  • Confirm the .env path is one Hermes recognizes (usually ~/.hermes/.env)
  • Some env vars need a process restart to take effect (e.g. GPU / CUDA settings) — /quit and re-enter for those