Smorster

Hermes Agent v2.0! Huge New Updates: WebUI, Qwen 3.6 Plus FREE, Computer Use, & More!

WorldofAI · 11m 07s · Watch on YouTube · 11 sources

Decision Card

Effort: One evening — if you own a Mac and already use Hermes Agent, run hermes update, then hermes computer-use install and hermes kanban init to try the headline features; budget ~1–2 hours including grabbing an OpenRouter/Nous Portal key.

Honest take: This is a feature-announcement roundup from a channel that openly monetizes via a sponsor (Tiny Fish) and a Discord, and several “facts” are garbled — the model is almost certainly Qwen3.6-Plus / Qwen3.7-Max, the computer-use engine is Cua (trycua) not “KUA,” and the flagship features (computer use, Light Panda backend) are macOS-only and beta, so anyone on Windows/Linux gets very little today.

Concrete next steps (multi-topic):

  • Background computer use (Cua) — adopt if you’re on macOS and want co-working desktop automation; install via hermes computer-use install. See trycua/cua. skip on Windows/Linux (not shipped yet).
  • Qwen3.6-Plus free tier via Nous Portal — try it for long-context coding while it’s free; sign up at the Hermes/Nous portal. skip if you’re committed to a frontier model and don’t want another API key.
  • Light Panda browser backend — try as the default browser backend with Chrome fallback for cheaper/faster automation; repo at lightpanda-io/browser. skip if your flows hit sites that still break in beta.
  • Kanban + /goal orchestration — adopt if you run multi-agent, long-horizon objectives; hermes update then init the Kanban board. skip if you only fire single one-shot prompts.
  • Voice cloning / TTS (ElevenLabs) — skip unless you specifically need spoken output; it’s a minor add-on.

TL;DR

WorldofAI walks through a wave of Hermes Agent updates from Nous Research: background computer use on macOS (powered by Cua), a free-for-now Qwen3.6-Plus model in the Nous portal, a Light Panda browser backend, a revamped Kanban for multi-agent orchestration, and a new /goal autonomous-objective command. Most marquee features are macOS-only and/or beta, and the video carries a paid Tiny Fish sponsor segment, so treat the enthusiasm accordingly.

Key Points

  • Hermes Agent is pitched as a persistent, self-improving autonomous system built by Nous Research under the MIT license, designed to run 24/7 on your own infrastructure 00:26
  • New computer-use feature is powered by “KUA” (Cua) and lets Hermes control your actual computer with basically any vision-capable model, not just frontier computer-use modes 01:08
  • Computer use runs in the background — your cursor doesn’t move, keyboard focus doesn’t change, and you keep using the machine alongside the agent 01:26
  • A roughly two-minute mid-roll promotes sponsor Tiny Fish (search/fetch/browser/agent under one API key, search/fetch now free) 02:01
  • Background computer use is macOS-only for now, with Windows and Linux “soon” 03:19
  • Computer use works with Claude, GPT, Gemini, OpenRouter vision models, and local VLMs 03:45
  • Alibaba’s “Quinn 3.6 Plus” (Qwen3.6-Plus) is now in the Nous portal, free for a limited time, with a 1-million-token context window 04:48
  • The Nous portal is built on top of OpenRouter, so you get its model-routing benefits plus exclusive free models and discounts 05:30
  • Light Panda — an open-source browser built for AI/machines — is now an integrated browser backend with automatic Chrome fallback 06:06
  • A new /goal command (like Codex’s and Claude Code’s) runs a long-horizon objective loop — plan, execute, review, retry — managed through the Hermes Kanban board 08:51

Notable Quotes

“It’s designed as a persistent autonomous system that continuously evolves over time. It’s built by News Research under the MIT license, and it is an agent that can run 24/7 on your own infrastructure.” 00:26

“Your cursor doesn’t move, your keyboard’s focus doesn’t change, and the Mac OS is not going to be able to switch spaces.” 03:34

“Instead of giving a single prompt to define it to work upon it is something that will continuously plan, execute, review and retry if some sort of failure is reached and it is going to manage subtasks until the objective is actually completed.” 09:20

Verified Claims

Claim: Hermes Agent is built by Nous Research under an MIT license as a self-hosted persistent agent. 00:30

Claim: Computer use is powered by “KUA” and drives macOS apps in the background without stealing cursor/focus/Spaces. 01:11

Claim: Background computer use is macOS-only for now, with Windows/Linux coming later. 03:19

Claim: “Quen 3.6 Plus” is an Alibaba model with a 1-million-token context window, strong at web dev and long-horizon tasks. 05:15

Claim: The Nous portal is built on top of OpenRouter. 05:30

Claim: Light Panda is an open-source headless browser built for AI/automation, now integrable as a Hermes backend. 06:06

Claim: Hermes is climbing above OpenClaw, “Pod Code,” and Kilo Code on AI-agent leaderboards. 00:11

Tools, Papers & Standards Mentioned

Follow-up Questions

  1. Is the Nous portal genuinely built on OpenRouter, and what are the actual rate limits, data-handling terms, and end date of the “free” Qwen3.6-Plus tier before relying on it for real work?
  2. How does Cua-powered background computer use compare in reliability and security (it uses private macOS SkyLight/AX SPIs) against OpenAI’s Codex background computer use and Claude’s computer-use mode?
  3. What is Hermes Agent’s real adoption — GitHub star counts cited across sources range widely (46k vs 95.6k) — and how mature is the /goal orchestration loop versus a polished demo?

Sources