Wednesday. Day 2.
No standups. No Slack pings at 9 AM. Just me, my laptop, and a portfolio so outdated even I was embarrassed to open it.
I opened it anyway. The "Get in Touch" button led to an email that no longer exists. Projects section had a to-do app I built in a weekend. Tech stack? React class components. I felt old just looking at it.
My brain: "You should update this."
My soul: "Let's watch YouTube instead."
And then — hour 3 of doomscrolling — I found Hermes Agent. An AI that lives on your machine, talks to you on Discord, runs tasks while you sleep. Free.
Me: "This is either the coolest thing I've seen, or I'm about to give my laptop a terminal disease."
What Is Hermes?
A coworker who never sleeps, never complains about overtime, does exactly what you tell it (most of the time), lives rent-free on your laptop, and works weekends without extra pay.
It's an open-source AI agent that runs locally, connects to Discord/WhatsApp/Telegram, and can code, edit files, run git operations, research the web — you name it.
Always online. Text it on Discord, it responds. Schedule a cron job, it runs. Perfect for a solo dev with zero willpower to maintain their own portfolio.
Setup
Architecture
1. Install Hermes
npm install -g hermes-agent
hermes setup
Pick an LLM provider. I chose OpenCode Go with Qwen3.7-max — runs locally, no data leaves my machine, fast enough for my nonsense prompts. Fallback chain means if one model fails, it auto-switches to the next.
2. VPN Access
Access Hermes from anywhere — phone, tablet, toilet.
curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh
sudo tailscale up --accept-routes
3. Connect Discord
messaging:
discord:
enabled: true
bot_token: "${DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN}"
allowed_users:
- YOUR_DISCORD_ID
Done. Now I'm texting my laptop to update my portfolio while still sitting down. Peak productivity.
Portfolio Workflow
My portfolio lives on Vercel. When Hermes needs to make updates:
- Clone the repo
- Create a branch
- Make changes
- Run builds
- Open PR via GitHub CLI
- Report back on Discord
Real Example: Adding Aida Project
Old me: open laptop → wait 45s for VS Code → find file → edit → git add/commit/push → pray to deployment gods. ~45 minutes.
New me:
"Hey, add Aida AI to my /project route. Chat-to-website builder by group.one."
Hermes: cloned repo → created branch → downloaded screenshots → added project with TypeScript types → opened PR → messaged me on Discord. ~3 minutes. I didn't get up from my chair.
Skills & Automation
Skills are reusable workflows Hermes remembers:
| Skill | What it does |
|---|---|
github-pr-workflow | Branch, commit, open PR, merge — automatically |
plan | Write a step-by-step plan before coding |
opencode | Spawn a coding agent to do the actual work |
I also set up cron jobs — portfolio build status checked daily, main → dev sync weekly. The laziest success story I've ever written.
Results
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Portfolio last updated | 6 months ago | < 24 hours |
| Time to make a small change | ~45 min | ~3 min |
| Access method | Physically open laptop | Text from Discord |
| Build failures | Found manually | Notified on Discord immediately |
What's Next
- Voice notes via WhatsApp — talk to Hermes instead of typing
- Auto-documentation — Hermes reads code, writes the docs
- Multi-agent workflows — research + implementation in parallel
Portfolio powered by Hermes Agent + Next.js + Vercel.
P.S. — If you see this, Hermes works. Still unemployed, but at least my portfolio is up to date.