How-To Series · Episode 59 / 59 · Module 9: Locking It Down

Hermes · Env Var Cheat Sheet

One file, predictable names. Learn the patterns and you can guess any variable you need.

After this videoYou can now find or guess any Hermes environment variable.

The reference lists 200+ variables, but you never read it cover to cover. They all go in one file, ~/.hermes/.env, or set them with hermes config set VAR value (secrets auto-route there). The reference is just five buckets: LLM Providers, Tool APIs (search, STT/TTS, browser), Terminal (TERMINAL_*), Messaging (every chat platform), and Hermes internals (HERMES_*). And the names are predictable: a provider key is <PROVIDER>_API_KEY, override its endpoint with <PROVIDER>_BASE_URL, connect a chat platform with <PLATFORM>_BOT_TOKEN, gate access with <PLATFORM>_ALLOWED_USERS, and Hermes' own knobs start with HERMES_. Realistically you'll only set a handful: a provider key, a bot token + allowlist, HERMES_HOME, and HERMES_TIMEZONE.

About these resources. Every variable comes from the Environment Variables Reference.

Sources · What this video distills

1 docs page · every command below traces to one of them
Primary · all variables, organized by category
Environment Variables Reference
Read ↗

Commands shown · Copy and paste

each shows the source doc it came from
Set any var (secrets → .env)from source ↗
hermes config set OPENROUTER_API_KEY sk-or-...
Stand up a gatewayfrom source ↗
hermes config set TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN ... · hermes config set TELEGRAM_ALLOWED_USERS 12345,67890
Relocate config · timezonefrom source ↗
export HERMES_HOME=~/.hermes-work · hermes config set HERMES_TIMEZONE America/New_York

Going deeper · Related Hermes docs

further reading · not sources of facts shown above

Next in the series · Episodes that build on this

E58
Configuration Deep Dive
E50
The Provider Landscape
E24
Hermes on Telegram