How-To Series · Episode 13 / 59 · Module 3: Make It Yours

Hermes · SOUL.md

Give it a personality. One markdown file. Talks like a partner, not a chatbot.

After this videoYou can now make Hermes sound like the assistant you actually wanted.

Out of the box, Hermes sounds like a generic AI assistant. SOUL.md at ~/.hermes/SOUL.md is slot #1 in the system prompt — edit it, and your agent's voice changes for every session, every project, every time. Plus the /personality slash command for quick session-level overlays (concise, technical, teacher, pirate, etc.).

About these resources. Two docs pages contributed facts: the Personality & SOUL.md feature page (slot #1 behavior, HERMES_HOME-only loading, auto-seed rule, presets list) and the Slash Commands Reference (the `/personality` line).

Sources · What this video distills

2 docs pages · every command below is traceable to one of them

Primary · SOUL.md location, slot #1 behavior, auto-seed, HERMES_HOME-only, /personality presets list

Personality & SOUL.md

The /personality slash command (line 70)

Slash Commands Reference

Commands shown · Copy and paste

each shows the source doc it came from

Open SOUL.md in your editorfrom Personality & SOUL.md ↗

$EDITOR ~/.hermes/SOUL.md

Switch to concise mode for this chatfrom Slash Commands Reference ↗

/personality concise

Switch to technical mode for this chatfrom Slash Commands Reference ↗

/personality technical

Switch to teacher mode for this chatfrom Slash Commands Reference ↗

/personality teacher

Have funfrom Slash Commands Reference ↗

/personality pirate

Going deeper · Related Hermes docs

further reading · not sources of facts shown above

Where AGENTS.md fits in (covered in E16). Project-specific instructions go here, not in SOUL.

Custom personality definitions

Go beyond the built-in presets when you need a named persona.

Next in the series · Episodes that build on this

E14

It Remembers You (Memory)

E15

Drop Files In With @

E16

AGENTS.md · Project-Specific Brain