Hermes Insight: plugin for Hermes Agent

Hermes Desktop plugin that defines any selected text in a side panel, with sources and citations

What Hermes Insight does

The popup offers two actions. Respond inserts the selection into the composer as a quoted reply with a leading >. Define opens a side panel that streams a definition from a provider of your choice, with web search results, inline-cited sources and thumbnails. It is designed to be fast: a stateless completion, the format template as the only system instruction, no tools, and reasoning set to none for OpenAI-compatible and local proxies.

The renderer half is a single plugin.js, and the backend half is a Python plugin that runs inside the gateway, resolves the provider list from your install config, performs web search using web.search_backend and streams the completion. The desktop half talks to the backend only through cli.exec calls to hermes insight, so no server, port or daemon is involved. Providers and models come from model.default, providers.* and custom_providers.*, and the panel can also use the current chat model. The plugin id is hermes-insight, and the README lists an Ask window inside the panel as planned.

Key features

Selection popup with Respond and Define actions
Right-docked definition panel with streamed answers, sources and thumbnails
Provider and model choice per lookup, or the current chat model
Web search through the configured web.search_backend
Stateless fast completion with no tools and reasoning off
hermes insight --list-providers command to verify the setup

When to use it

Looking up an unfamiliar term from an agent reply without leaving the app
Quoting part of a long answer into the composer to reply to it in line
Comparing how different configured providers define the same word

Who it is for: Hermes Desktop users who want quick definitions and quote-replies inside the chat window.

How it fits with Hermes Agent

It is a plugin for Hermes Desktop, listed in the Hermes plugin catalog as hermes-insight.

How to install Hermes Insight

These commands are copied from the project's README. Check the repository for the latest steps before you run them.

hermes plugins install BrokeSkill/Hermes-Insight/backend-plugin
hermes plugins enable hermes-insight

Requirements: Hermes Desktop with providers configured in your Hermes config; an optional web search backend set through web.search_backend

FAQ

What is Hermes Insight?

Hermes Insight is a plugin for Hermes Desktop that defines selected text. A popup with Define and Respond appears on selection, and Define streams a cited definition into a side panel.

Does Hermes Insight work with Hermes Agent?

Yes. It is a Hermes Desktop plugin and is listed in the Hermes plugin catalog as hermes-insight. After enabling it, hermes insight --list-providers prints the providers from your config.

Is Hermes Insight free and open source?

The README says MIT, with modifications and derived versions permitted as long as the author, BrokeSkill, is attributed. GitHub does not detect a standard license, so confirm the terms in the LICENSE file.