Hermes Agent on iMessage: how JB texts
JB lives in iMessage. Under the hood, that is three pieces: a Mac signed into Messages with JB’s own Apple ID, BlueBubbles running on that Mac to pass messages in and out, and the BlueBubbles adapter that ships with Hermes Agent, which hands each text to the right profile and sends the reply back.
The setup itself is documented by both projects. What follows is what we learned running it for a real business. As with the rest of this section, we share lessons, not hostnames, settings, or patches.
What we learned
Let the other person send the first message
Replying inside a conversation that already exists is fast and reliable. Starting a brand-new conversation from the Mac was not: on recent macOS, the send could stall and report an error even when the message arrived. So JB's public button opens Messages on the visitor's phone with a short note filled in, and they press send. It also means JB never cold-texts anyone.
Photos need a real address
Early on, the model sometimes pointed at image files that did not exist, and the photo was skipped without any error. The fix was a rule in JB's instructions: send a public image link, or save the file to one known folder first and point there.
Hide the machinery from customers
Agent frameworks talk to their operators: status notes, model names, setup tips, slash commands. A business owner should never see any of that. Client profiles run in a client-safe mode that treats commands as ordinary text and filters system notices out of the thread.
Instructions apply to new conversations
Hermes stores the instructions with each session, so a change to a profile's instructions shows up in new conversations, not ones already running. Plan changes around that.
Route by who is texting
One Messages account can serve more than one profile, so who sent a text decides which profile answers. A stranger must never reach a profile that holds a client's business.
Watch for silence
If a text goes unanswered for a few minutes, a watchdog alerts a person. A business agent that quietly stops replying is worse than one that says it is stuck.
Why iMessage at all
Owners already live in their texts. An agent that brings the next thing to the thread, already written, gets answered. One that waits in an app gets forgotten. The owner’s side of that is on iMessage AI: a business agent that lives in your texts.
Also read: Hermes Agent vs OpenClaw: why JB switched.
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