I Was Bored, My Portfolio Was Dusty, Then Hermes Happened

Monday. Freelance Day 2. The Hustle Is Real (Not).

So here I am. Day 2 of being my own boss. No more commuting, no more "quick syncs". Freedom! Excitement! ...And absolutely nothing to do because the project hasn't started yet.

I opened my portfolio. The same portfolio I built two years ago and basically abandoned like a tamagotchi with a dead battery. The "Get in Touch" button led to an email that no longer exists. The projects section had a screenshot of a to-do app I built in a weekend. The tech stack? React with class components. Class components. I felt old just looking at it.

My brain: "You should update this." My soul: "Absolutely not. That's boring. Let's watch YouTube instead."

And then — on hour 3 of doomscrolling — I stumbled upon Hermes Agent. An AI that lives on your machine. Talks to you on Discord. Runs tasks while you sleep. And it was free.

I thought: "This is either the coolest thing I've ever seen, or I'm about to give my laptop a terminal disease."

What Even Is Hermes?

Let me put it this way: imagine if you had 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
• Smarter everyday

That's Hermes. It's an open-source AI agent that runs locally on your machine, connects to your messaging platforms (Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram), and can execute tasks — coding, git operations, file editing, web research, you name it.

The best part? It's always online. You text it on Discord, it responds. You schedule a cron job, it runs. You delegate a task to a sub-agent, it goes and does it.

For a solo developer with zero willpower to maintain their own portfolio? This was meant for me.

The Setup (Or: How I Accidentally Became a 24/7 Tech Support)

Here's the architecture I ended up with:

Step 1: Install Hermes

npm install -g hermes-agent
hermes setup

The setup asks you to pick an LLM provider. I chose the $5/month affordable OpenCode Go subscription with MiniMax M2.7 — runs locally, no data leaves my machine, and it's fast enough for my nonsense prompts. You can also chain fallback models, so if one model is down, it automatically switches to the next. Very thoughtful, unlike my backup alarm which has never gone off once in my life.

Step 2: Set Up VPN Access

Since I wanted to access Hermes from my phone while eating lunch (or avoiding social events), I set up a VPN tunnel. This way my laptop is accessible from anywhere, like a digital panic button I can press whenever I feel like updating my portfolio at 2 AM.

# Install and connect
curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh
sudo tailscale up --accept-routes

Step 3: Connect Discord

This is where the magic happens. Hermes connects to your Discord server (or DMs), and suddenly you have a coding buddy who works 24/7 and never asks for a raise.

# ~/.hermes/config.yaml
messaging:
  discord:
    enabled: true
    bot_token: "${DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN}"
    allowed_users:
      - YOUR_DISCORD_ID  # Only you can talk to it

And just like that — I'm texting my laptop to update my portfolio while sitting on the toilet. Peak productivity.

The Portfolio Connection (Or: How I Made My Laptop Do My Homework)

Here's the beautiful part: my portfolio lives on Vercel. When Hermes needs to make updates, it can:

1. Clone the repo and make changes locally
2. Run builds to make sure nothing is broken
3. Open PRs via GitHub CLI
4. Report back on Discord with the PR link

Real Example: The Aida Project Update

Last Tuesday (Day 5 of freelance, already losing track of time), I wanted to add Aida AI Website Builder to my portfolio. The old me would have:

• Opened the laptop
• Waited 45 seconds for VS Code to start
• Found the right file
• Edited it
• Git add, git commit, git push
• Prayed to the deployment gods

The new me, with Hermes:

"Hey, add Aida AI to my /project route. It's a chat-to-website builder by group.one. Description: AI-native business platform for European small businesses."

Hermes:

1. Cloned the repo (2 seconds)
2. Created a new branch (1 second)
3. Downloaded screenshots (15 seconds, I timed it)
4. Added the project with proper TypeScript types (30 seconds)
5. Opened a PR on GitHub (5 seconds)
6. Messaged me on Discord: "Done. Here's the link." (instant)

Total time: 3 minutes. I didn't even get up from my chair.

That's the power of having a personal AI agent. My portfolio went from "ancient artifact" to "semi-maintained" without me lifting a finger. Well, I lifted one finger — to type the message.

Skills & Automation (The Real Magic)

Hermes has skills — reusable workflows that the agent remembers and executes. Think of them like muscle memory for your AI buddy.

I also set up cron jobs:

• Daily: Check portfolio build status and report any failures
• Weekly: Sync main → dev branches so I never fall behind

My portfolio is now somewhat maintained, and I didn't have to do anything. This is the laziest success story I've ever written.

Results (So Far)

After 2 weeks of running Hermes, here's what changed:

What's Next?

I'm planning to:

• Add voice notes via WhatsApp — talk to Hermes instead of typing
• Automate documentation — Hermes reads my code, writes the docs
• Multi-agent workflows — spawn sub-agents for research + implementation simultaneously

The AI landscape is moving fast. Having a persistent, customizable agent that runs on your hardware, connected to your platforms, is a game-changer for solo developers who are too lazy to maintain their own projects (like me).

Portfolio powered by Hermes Agent + Next.js + Vercel.

P.S. — If you see this blog post, it means Hermes works. And I'm still looking for opportunity to collab on any dope AI/ML projects, but at least my portfolio is up to date.