Hermes Agent Security — enforcing agent safety in Hermes
Hermes agents combine persistent memory, tool access, and long-running autonomy with a messaging gateway that can act in the world. That's powerful — and it means untrusted content reaching the agent can try to steer real actions. This page is the Hermes-specific security guide.
Hermes retrieves context and calls tools on your behalf. Retrieving a document or recalling a memory is not the same as authorising the action it suggests. That separation is what runtime enforcement provides.
Hermes' exposure
Hermes agents read untrusted content (emails, web pages, messages, documents), keep long-term memory, and call tools — including sending messages and making network calls. Without an enforcement layer, a single malicious document can attempt to override instructions and trigger an action.
Adding enforcement to Hermes
AgentInterdict integrates with Hermes and wraps the runtime boundary, intercepting memory writes and tool calls before they execute.
Hermes security checklist
- Bound authority to origin — untrusted content never carries trusted-source privileges.
- Gate externally-visible actions (send, post, publish) behind action-time checks.
- Redact credentials before they reach memory.
- Revalidate at action time, not just at ingest.
- Fail closed when memory state is uncertain or tampered.