What stops without the gateway
| In Herald | With the gateway stopped |
|---|---|
| Schedules | Jobs don’t fire, and a Bot Chat delivery to a profile whose gateway is down is recorded as failed |
| Kanban | Ready cards stay in Ready, because the dispatcher runs inside the gateway |
| Bot list | Bots running under another profile can be missing if the default profile’s gateway is stopped |
| Telegram and other messengers | Your bots stop answering there |
| Chatting in Herald | Still works, through hermes serve |
Check and start it
- See what is running
hermes gateway statusshows the gateway for the current profile;hermes gateway listshows every profile and whether its gateway is running.hermes gateway status hermes gateway list - Start it
Use
hermes gateway startif it is installed as a service, orhermes gateway runto run it in the foreground, which the Hermes docs recommend for WSL, Docker and Termux.hermes gateway start - Keep it running
hermes gateway installsets it up as a systemd service on Linux or a launchd service on macOS, so it survives restarts. On WSL, runhermes gateway runinside tmux instead. - Check the scheduler
This says whether cron is alive, when it last ticked and when the next job is due.
hermes cron status - Read the log if it won’t start
hermes logs gatewayshows platform connections and errors. - Refresh Herald
Pull down on the roster, and reopen Schedules or the kanban board.
hermes serve and the gateway are different
Herald connects to hermes serve, the backend Hermes Desktop also uses, on port 9119. The messaging gateway is a separate background process that connects your messaging platforms, handles their sessions, runs cron jobs and delivers voice messages. The two run side by side, and npx herald-setup only starts hermes serve.
After it’s back
A recurring job that missed its time while the gateway was down runs once when the scheduler returns, however long the gap. Paused jobs never catch up. Bot Chat deliveries that failed aren’t sent again automatically, but the output stays in hermes cron runs. Ready kanban cards are picked up on the dispatcher’s next pass, every 60 seconds by default.
Questions
Do I need the gateway if I only use Herald?
For chatting, no. For schedules, kanban runs and Bot Chat deliveries, yes.
Does npx herald-setup start the gateway?
No. It starts hermes serve when nothing answers, which is what Herald connects to. Start the gateway separately.
My computer went to sleep. Will jobs run?
Not while it sleeps. When it wakes and the gateway is running again, each recurring job that missed its slot runs once.
