How-To Series · Module 3: Make It Yours

Language Packs

Reword every fixed UI string in Hermes. Plugin packs add languages, personal overlays reword any line, and the agent's answers stay exactly as they are.

After this videoYou can switch Hermes' UI language, install a community pack, and write your own pack or a personal two-line override.

Hermes ships 17 UI languages and the list is pluggable. A language pack is a plugin, or a folder in your Hermes home, that adds a new language or overrides the wording of an existing one, for the Python side, the TUI, and the Desktop app, all from one pack. Packs translate static UI text only: approval prompts, gateway replies, tool verbs, tips. Agent responses, tool output, and logs stay as they are. Lookup walks three layers, plugin packs, your locales overlay, then the bundled catalogs, and every layer can be partial. Install with hermes plugins install, switch with hermes config set display.language, write a pack with just plugin.yaml plus a locales folder, validate with hermes plugins validate.

About these resources. Every command in this video comes from the Language Packs doc.

New words here · Plain English

one sentence each · full glossary

Language packA plugin, or a folder in your Hermes home, that adds a UI language or overrides the wording of an existing one for the CLI, TUI, and Desktop at once.

Locale overlayA partial yaml file in /locales/ that rewrites only the UI strings you name. Per profile when you put it in a profile's locales folder.

EndonymA language's own name for itself, like Polski or Deutsch. Hermes shows endonyms in the TUI and Desktop language switchers.

provides_localesThe plugin.yaml key that registers a pack's language files with Hermes. It declares each language id, its endonym, and whether it reads right to left.

Sources · What this video distills

1 docs page · every command below traces to it

Primary guide

Language Packs

Commands shown · Copy and paste

each shows the source doc it came from

Install a language pack pluginfrom source ↔

hermes plugins install https://github.com/teknium1/hermes-lang-pl

Switch the UI languagefrom source ↔

hermes config set display.language pl

Validate a pack you wrotefrom source ↔

hermes plugins validate ./hermes-lang-pl

Going deeper · Related Hermes docs

further reading · not sources of facts shown above

How plugin loading, provides_locales registration, and opt-outs work.

Where display.language lives and how .env overrides work.

Next in the series · Episodes that build on this

Built-In Plugins Tour

Build Your Own Plugin