Agentic Substrate

What Agentic Substrate does

You give your agent INSTALL.md, and the agent adapts the setup to its own tool, operating system, permissions and project while keeping your current model, provider and native memory setting. The usual result is one short addition of 200 words or fewer to the tool's native project instructions, a small .agentic-substrate/CORE.md, and an installation receipt with private backups and removal instructions. The workflow it teaches is to research what is uncertain, plan proportionally, act, verify, and retain useful knowledge.

It does not train or modify model weights. Changes are meant to be reversible: original files are preserved, owned changes are recorded and later user edits survive removal. An optional project-local Markdown journal needs your agreement, and the minimal setup requires no GPU, database, Docker, model download or background service. The README's validation table reports a passing fresh Codex install and six passing offline startup-loader tests on Hermes 0.18.2.

Key features

• Install by handing INSTALL.md to the agent, which adapts it to its tool and operating system
• Always-loaded instruction addition targeting 200 words or fewer, plus a small .agentic-substrate/CORE.md
• Installation receipt with private backups and removal instructions
• Preserves the current model, provider and native memory setting
• Minimal setup needs no GPU, database, Docker, model download or background service

When to use it

• Giving Hermes Agent or another coding agent a consistent research, plan, act and verify routine
• Adding project instructions in a way that can be undone cleanly
• Reusing one setup across agents such as Codex and Claude Code

Who it is for: Developers who want a lightweight, reversible workflow layer for their coding agents rather than a heavy memory stack.

How it fits with Hermes Agent

The repository is tagged hermes-agent. The README reports six passing offline startup-loader tests on Hermes 0.18.2, but a live Hermes installation test was blocked, so installation and memory on Hermes are unverified.

Note: The README calls it an agent-guided portable beta and says it is not a deterministic installer or a compatibility guarantee for every agent.

FAQ