feat: Hermes Agent connector — route events to Hermes gateway as alternative actor

[c-h-]

Summary

Add a Hermes Agent connector that allows OrgLoop to route events to a running Hermes gateway instance as an alternative to OpenClaw actors.

Why

Hermes Agent (NousResearch, MIT) includes a messaging gateway that could serve as an event-processing actor alongside OpenClaw. This matters because:

• Hermes has auto-managed persistent memory — the actor remembers context across events
• Autonomous skill creation — the actor builds reusable skills from repeated task patterns
• Multi-model runtime — dynamically selects models per task complexity
• If Hermes exposes a webhook/HTTP API, OrgLoop can deliver events to it just like it delivers to OpenClaw today

Architecture

Currently OrgLoop routes events to OpenClaw actors:

GitHub webhook → OrgLoop source → route match → OpenClaw actor → agent session

With Hermes connector:

GitHub webhook → OrgLoop source → route match → Hermes actor → Hermes gateway

The Hermes gateway would be a long-running process that receives events, processes them with its own agent loop, and can call back via webhook or API.

What to build

1. @orgloop/connector-hermes source + actor package

A new connector package that can:

• As actor: Deliver OrgLoop events to a Hermes gateway endpoint
  • HTTP POST to Hermes gateway with event payload
  • Map OrgLoop event format to Hermes message format
  • Handle Hermes responses/callbacks
• As source (stretch): Receive events FROM Hermes (if it emits lifecycle events)

2. Actor config

actors:
  - id: hermes-personal
    connector: "@orgloop/connector-hermes"
    config:
      gateway_url: "http://localhost:7878"
      # or however Hermes gateway exposes its API
      workspace: ~/personal/orgloop
      memory_persistence: true

3. Route config

routes:
  - name: pr-review-via-hermes
    when:
      source: github-webhook
      events: [resource.changed]
      filter:
        provenance.platform_event: "pull_request.review_submitted"
    then:
      actor: hermes-personal
      config:
        wake_mode: now
        deliver: true
    with:
      prompt_file: ../sops/pr-review.md

Key unknowns (investigate first)

• Does Hermes gateway expose an HTTP API for receiving tasks?
• What is the message format? (REST JSON? WebSocket? Something else?)
• Does it support webhook callbacks on task completion?
• How does it handle concurrent events? (queue? parallel? reject?)
• Can we pass SOP context (prompt files) alongside the event payload?
• How does Hermes memory interact with OrgLoop event context?

Implementation plan

1. Phase 0: Install Hermes, start gateway, probe the API surface
2. Phase 1: Build minimal actor connector (HTTP POST events to gateway)
3. Phase 2: Add callback support (Hermes → OrgLoop completion events)
4. Phase 3: Test with real event routing (PR reviews, CI failures)
5. Phase 4: Compare quality/speed vs OpenClaw actor on same events

Value proposition

If Hermes gateway works well as an OrgLoop actor, we get:

• Memory accumulation — the actor gets smarter over time (remembers past PR patterns, common fixes)
• Skill creation — the actor builds reusable skills from repeated event types
• Model flexibility — Hermes picks the right model per event complexity
• Optionality — not locked into OpenClaw as the only actor runtime

This is NOT about replacing OpenClaw — it is about OrgLoop being runtime-agnostic for actors, which is already its design philosophy.

References

• NousResearch Hermes Agent (search for official repo)
• Evaluation: Obsidian Personal/research/hermes-agent-evaluation.md
• Related: feat: Hermes Agent harness — non-interactive CLI + messaging gateway modes agentctl#141 (Hermes harness)