At a glance
- Hermes feature
- Sessions, saved in
~/.hermes/state.dbwith their source - Per bot
- The 100 most recent sessions
- Across bots
- The Sessions filter on the home screen
- Search
- Title, preview, bot, machine and source
- Replies go to
- The session you opened, not the bot’s Bot Chat
Bot Chats and other sessions
Herald gives every bot one continuous conversation: the session titled exactly “Bot Chat”, the same one Hermes Desktop’s Bot Mode uses. Tap a bot on the roster and you are always back there. Group rooms keep their own hidden sessions. Herald leaves both out of session lists, because you reach them from the roster.
Everything else is a saved session: the trip you planned on Telegram, the CI fix in the terminal, the outline on the desktop. Hermes tags each one with where it came from, and Herald shows that source with the title, a preview and the number of messages.
Pick up a session
- Open the bot’s sessions
Choose Sessions from the chat menu, or open Bot settings and tap Browse sessions.
- Or see every bot’s sessions
On the home screen, tap the Sessions chip under the search box. Sessions from every reachable bot are merged, newest first.
- Tap one to continue
The chat opens with its history, and the header says Saved session.
- Reply, then go back when you like
Your messages join that session. To return to the bot’s main conversation, choose Open Bot Chat from the chat menu.
What you’ll find in the list
| Source | Example |
|---|---|
| Telegram, Discord, Slack, Signal and other messengers | A conversation with your bot in that app |
| Terminal | A chat in hermes or hermes --tui on your computer |
| Desktop | A chat in Hermes Desktop |
| A thread through the Hermes email gateway | |
| Cron | A scheduled job’s run |
Managing sessions
Settings › Sessions lists a profile’s terminal, desktop, cron and background runs. Open a row’s menu and choose Delete session to remove it and its history from your Hermes. Bot Chats and group rooms are managed by Herald and don’t appear there.
Inside a Bot Chat, /new has nothing to start, because the chat is continuous. Use /compress to shrink the context or /branch to copy the chat into a fresh session.
Limits
- Hermes lets one app drive a session at a time. If Hermes Desktop or the terminal has it open, Herald says so; close it there and send again.
- Lists show each bot’s 100 most recent sessions.
- Hermes keeps some internal runs, such as kanban workers, out of session pickers.
- The Agents tree for subagents is live only, so a resumed session shows its messages, not past trees.
Questions
Does continuing a session in Herald change the original?
Your messages and the bot’s replies are added to that same session in Hermes, so it has the full history wherever you open it next.
Why isn’t the Bot Chat in my sessions list?
It is the bot’s main conversation, one tap away on the roster, so Herald doesn’t list it twice.
Can I use Hermes Desktop and Herald on the same chat?
Yes, one at a time. If Desktop runs its own backend, connect Desktop to the same gateway Herald uses (Desktop › Settings › Connections) and both can attach to one live chat.
How do I start a fresh conversation with a bot?
Use /branch to copy the current chat into a new session, or /compress to keep the Bot Chat but free up its context.
