How-To Series · 4: Eyes, Ears, Voice

Bot Screen

Give each headless Linux bot its own desktop, watch it work live, and take over when it hits a login, 2FA prompt, CAPTCHA or payment step.

After this videoYou can watch a headless Hermes bot's desktop live, take over to sign in or clear a CAPTCHA, and hand control back so it keeps working with the session you just unlocked.

Bot Screen gives every Hermes profile on a headless Linux gateway host its own Xfce desktop that the bot's computer use and headed browser act on, streamed live into Hermes Desktop. Watch what the bot does, take over when it hits a login, 2FA prompt, CAPTCHA or payment step, then hand control back and let it continue. The screen lives on the gateway host, not your machine, so the bot keeps working after you close the app. Install and start with hermes computer-use screen install and screen start, control it from the Screen pane, the CLI, or bot_desktop.auto_start, and read the doc for the threat model and takeover flow.

About these resources. Every command in this video comes from the Bot Screen doc.

New words here · Plain English

one sentence each · full glossary

Bot ScreenA per-profile Xfce desktop on a headless Linux gateway host that the bot computer use and headed browser act on, streamed live into Hermes Desktop.

Take overWhen a human takes control of a bot screen to sign in or clear a step the bot should not do itself, like login, 2FA, CAPTCHA or payment.

Control leaseA tool-level fence: while a human holds it, the bot computer use and browser tools are refused. It is not an OS boundary.

Sources · What this video distills

1 docs page · every command below traces to it

Primary guide

Bot Screen

Commands shown · Copy and paste

each shows the source doc it came from

Install the screen packages on the gateway hostfrom source ↗

hermes computer-use screen install

Start this profile's screenfrom source ↗

hermes computer-use screen start

Is it running? Who holds control?from source ↗

hermes computer-use screen status

Stop it; refuses while a human holds controlfrom source ↗

hermes computer-use screen stop

Force stop; also frees a stuck leasefrom source ↗

hermes computer-use screen stop --force

Going deeper · Related Hermes docs

further reading · not sources of facts shown above

The background driver the screen's computer_use calls draw on.

The Chromium the dock and bot share, with one persistent profile per bot.

Next in the series · Episodes that build on this

Browser Automation