What are Hermes Agent Automation Templates?

They're copy-paste recipes for common automation patterns using Hermes Agent's cron scheduler and webhook platform. Each template includes a trigger (schedule or event), an LLM prompt that processes the output, and a delivery target (Telegram, Slack, email, etc.).

How is this different from regular cron jobs?

Regular cron jobs run a script and dump output. Hermes Automation Templates run a script, feed the output to an LLM, and the LLM decides what to do — summarize, alert, or stay silent. You get a Slack message instead of a log file you never check.

What triggers do Automation Templates support?

Three trigger types: schedule (cron — hourly, nightly, weekly), GitHub events (PR opens, pushes, issues via webhook), and API calls (any external service POSTs JSON to your Hermes endpoint).

Do I need a specific model for this?

No. Automation Templates work with any model Hermes supports — Claude, GPT, open-source models, local Ollama. The LLM's job is evaluating structured output and deciding whether to act, which even smaller models handle well.

What can I automate with this?

The official templates cover nightly issue triage, automatic PR code review, docs drift detection, dependency security audits, deploy verification, alert triage, and uptime monitoring.

Automation Templates: making cron jobs smart with Hermes Agent

Hermes Agent's new Automation Templates turn dumb cron jobs into conversational workflows. An LLM evaluates the output, decides what matters, and delivers it to Telegram, Slack, or email. Here's how they work and how to set one up.

Cron jobs are reliable. They run on schedule. They never complain.

They’re also dumb. A cron job runs a script at 2am, dumps output to a log file, and moves on. If something breaks, you find out when a user tells you — not when the cron job runs.

Hermes Agent’s new Automation Templates fix this by putting an LLM between the script and the output. Instead of dumping to a log, the script’s output goes to an LLM that decides: is this important? Should I alert someone? Can I stay silent?

The result is a cron job that thinks before it speaks.

Key takeaways:

Automation Templates are pre-built recipes for cron + LLM workflows — copy, paste, run

Three trigger types: schedule, GitHub events, API calls

LLM evaluates output and decides: alert, summarize, or stay silent

Works with any model — the LLM is only evaluating structured data

Six official templates: triage, PR review, docs audit, security audit, deploy verify, uptime monitor

The problem with dumb cron jobs

Every team has them. A nightly backup check that emails a log. A weekly dependency audit that dumps to a file. A monitoring script that pages you at 3am for every minor blip.

The common pattern: run script → dump output → hope someone reads it.

Automation Templates flip this to: run script → LLM evaluates output → deliver only what matters.

The LLM isn’t doing heavy lifting here. It’s reading structured output (a list of issues, a diff, a status page) and making a binary decision: alert or stay silent. If it alerts, it writes a one-paragraph summary. If nothing’s wrong, it says nothing at all.

This is the perfect job for an LLM. It’s not creative work. It’s triage.

Setting up a nightly issue triage

The simplest template to start with is the nightly backlog triage. It runs every night, checks for new GitHub issues, and sends a summary to Telegram.

hermes cron create "0 2 * * *" \
  "You are a project manager triaging the repo.
  1. Run: gh issue list --repo owner/repo --state open --json number,title,labels,author,createdAt --limit 30
  2. Identify issues opened in the last 24 hours
  3. For each new issue: suggest a priority label (P0-P3) and category (bug, feature, docs, security), write a one-line triage note
  4. Summarize: total open, new today, breakdown by priority
  Format as a clean digest. If no new issues, respond with [SILENT]." \
  --name "Nightly backlog triage" \
  --deliver telegram

The [SILENT] token is the key detail. If there are no new issues, the LLM returns [SILENT] and Hermes sends nothing. If there are issues, you get a Telegram message with a summary. No empty reports, no noise.

Automatic PR code review

The PR review template hooks into GitHub webhooks. When a PR is opened, Hermes fetches the diff, runs it through an LLM review prompt, and posts a comment directly on the PR.

hermes webhook subscribe github-pr-review \
  --events "pull_request" \
  --prompt "Review PR #{pull_request.number}: {pull_request.title}
  Fetch diff: curl -sL {pull_request.diff_url}
  Review for: security issues, performance concerns, code quality, missing tests.
  If trivial docs/typo change, say so briefly." \
  --skill github-code-review \
  --deliver github_comment

The webhook route is set up in one command. No server config, no middleware. Hermes listens on its webhook port and routes the event to the LLM prompt.

Dependency security audit

This one runs daily and checks for vulnerabilities:

hermes cron create "0 6 * * *" \
  "Run: pip audit && npm audit
  Flag any CVEs with CVSS >= 7.0
  Check if upgrades are available
  Note whether each dependency is direct or transitive
  If clean, respond with [SILENT]" \
  --name "Dependency security audit" \
  --deliver telegram

The LLM parses the pip audit and npm audit output, filters by severity, and summarizes only the critical findings. A clean audit produces zero noise.

Why this pattern works

Automation Templates work because they match the shape of the problem to the shape of the tool:

Problem	Solution
Cron output nobody reads	LLM evaluates and summarizes
Alert fatigue from noisy monitors	LLM filters by severity, stays silent when clean
PRs merged without review	LLM reviews and posts comments automatically
Security advisories buried in email	LLM surfaces only CVSS >= 7.0

The LLM isn’t replacing a human reviewer for complex judgment calls. It’s replacing the log file you never read with a Telegram message you actually see.

Setting up your own

To use Automation Templates, you need Hermes Agent running with:

The cron scheduler enabled (default)
A delivery target configured (Telegram, Slack, Discord, or email)
The webhook platform enabled (if using event-driven triggers)

Delivery targets are configured in config.yaml or ~/.hermes/config.yaml:

platforms:
  telegram:
    enabled: true
    bot_token: "..."
    chat_id: "..."

That’s it. The templates handle the rest.

How to set up Hermes Agent — Getting Hermes running from scratch
How to build your first AI agent in 2026 — The fundamentals of agent loops
AI agent error handling patterns — Building reliable production agents

This article was published on Agentic Up (https://agenticup.dev) — practical guides for developers and founders building with AI agents. Reach me at [email protected].