Built in the open
How JB runs on Hermes Agent
JB runs on Hermes Agent, the open-source agent framework from Nous Research. Vertana adds the parts a business needs on top: the setup for each business, the approval rules, the text thread, and a person behind it.
We think you should know what an agent runs on before you hand it your business. So here is the shape of it, with one rule: we explain the ideas and the lessons, not the map. Hostnames, settings, patches, and security details stay private.
The pieces
One profile per business
Every business JB works for gets its own Hermes profile, with its own instructions, its own memory, and its own tools. Keeping each business separate is part of what we sell, so it shapes everything below.
iMessage through the built-in adapter
Hermes ships an adapter for BlueBubbles, which connects a Mac signed into Messages. That is how JB texts. The builder's version is on its own page.
Fewer tools, on purpose
Each profile only gets the tools its job needs. Whole groups of tools, like browsing or running arbitrary code, are switched off for client profiles.
Work happens in a sandbox
When JB runs commands or edits files, it does so in a sandbox for that profile, not on the machine that runs everything else.
Approvals live in the tools, not the prompt
Telling an agent “always ask first” is not a control. JB proposes changes through a tool that checks the rules and holds the change until the right person says yes. The prompt can't talk its way around it.
Routines on a schedule
Daily and hourly jobs run as Hermes routines. Some call the model; many are plain scripts that never need to, which keeps them cheap and predictable.
Go deeper
- Hermes Agent vs OpenClaw: why JB switched
- Hermes Agent on iMessage: how JB texts
- JB’s live work log, the real tasks this setup does every day
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