Toolsets Reference

Toolsets are named collections of tools that control what an agent can do. They are the primary mechanism for configuring tool availability per platform, per session, or per task.

How Toolsets Work

Each tool belongs to exactly one toolset. When you activate a toolset, all tools in that collection become available to the agent. There are three types of toolsets:

• Core — A single logical group of related tools (e.g., file toolset bundles read_file, write_file, patch, search_files)
• Composite — Combines multiple core toolsets for a common scenario (e.g., debugging bundles file, terminal, and web tools)
• Platform — Complete tool configuration for a specific deployment context (e.g., hermes-cli is the default for interactive CLI sessions)

Toolset Configuration

Per Session (CLI)

hermes chat --toolsets web,file,terminal
hermes chat --toolsets debugging        # composite — expands to file + terminal + web
hermes chat --toolsets all              # everything

Per Platform (config.yaml)

toolsets:
  - hermes-cli          # default for CLI
  # - hermes-telegram   # override for Telegram gateway

Interactive Management

hermes tools                            # curses UI to toggle per platform

Or within a session:

/tools list
/tools disable browser
/tools enable rl

Core Toolsets

Toolset	Tools	Purpose
browser	browser_back, browser_click, browser_console, browser_get_images, browser_navigate, browser_press, browser_scroll, browser_snapshot, browser_type, browser_vision, web_search	Full browser automation. Includes web_search as a fallback for quick lookups.
clarify	clarify	Ask user questions when the agent needs clarification.
code_execution	execute_code	Run Python scripts that call Hermes tools programmatically.
cronjob	cronjob	Schedule and manage recurring tasks.
delegation	delegate_task	Spawn isolated sub-agent instances to do work in parallel.
file	patch, read_file, search_files, write_file	Read, write, search, and edit files.
homeassistant	ha_call_service, ha_get_state, ha_list_entities, ha_list_services	Control smart home via Home Assistant. Only available when HASS_TOKEN is set.
image_gen	image_generate	Text-to-image generation via FAL.ai.
memory	memory	Manage persistent cross-session memory.
messaging	send_message	Send messages to other platforms (Telegram, Discord, etc.) mid-session.
moa	mixture_of_agents	Multi-model consensus via Mixture of Agents.
rl	rl_check_status, rl_edit_config, rl_get_current_config, rl_get_results, rl_list_environments, rl_list_runs, rl_select_environment, rl_start_training, rl_stop_training, rl_test_inference	Manage RL training environments (Atropos).
search	web_search	Web search only (no extraction).
session_search	session_search	Search past chat sessions.
skills	skill_manage, skill_view, skills_list	CRUD skills and browse web.
terminal	process, terminal	Execute shell commands and manage background processes.
todo	todo	Manage task lists within a session.
tts	text_to_speech	Text-to-speech audio generation.
vision	vision_analyze	Image analysis via vision-capable models.
web	web_extract, web_search	Web search and page content extraction.

Composite Toolsets

These expand to multiple core toolsets, providing convenient shorthands for common situations:

Toolset	Expands To	Use Case
debugging	patch, process, read_file, search_files, terminal, web_extract, web_search, write_file	Debugging session — access files, terminal, and web research without browser cost or delegation.
safe	image_generate, mixture_of_agents, vision_analyze, web_extract, web_search	Read-only research and media generation. No file writes, no terminal access, no code execution. Good for untrusted or restricted environments.

Platform Toolsets

Platform toolsets define the complete tool configuration for a deployment target. Most messaging platforms use the same set as hermes-cli:

Toolset	Difference from hermes-cli
hermes-cli	Full toolset — all 38 tools including clarify. Default for interactive CLI sessions.
hermes-acp	Removes clarify, cronjob, image_generate, mixture_of_agents, send_message, text_to_speech, homeassistant tools. Focuses on coding tasks in IDE context.
hermes-api-server	Removes clarify, send_message, and text_to_speech. Adds everything else — suitable for programmatic access when user interaction isn't possible.
hermes-telegram	Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-discord	Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-slack	Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-whatsapp	Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-signal	Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-matrix	Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-mattermost	Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-email	Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-sms	Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-dingtalk	Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-feishu	Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-wecom	Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-homeassistant	Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-webhook	Same as hermes-cli.
hermes-gateway	Union of all messaging platform toolsets. Used internally when the gateway needs the broadest possible toolset.

Dynamic Toolsets

MCP Server Toolsets

Each configured MCP server generates a mcp-<server> toolset at runtime. For example, if you configure a github MCP server, a mcp-github toolset is created containing all tools the server exposes.

# config.yaml
mcp:
  servers:
    github:
      command: npx
      args: ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-github"]

This creates a mcp-github toolset you can reference in --toolsets or platform configuration.

Plugin Toolsets

Plugins can register their own toolsets via ctx.register_tool() during plugin initialization. They appear alongside built-in toolsets and can be toggled the same way.

Custom Toolsets

Define custom toolsets in config.yaml to create project-specific bundles:

toolsets:
  - hermes-cli
custom_toolsets:
  data-science:
    - file
    - terminal
    - code_execution
    - web
    - vision

Wildcards

• all or * — expands to every registered toolset (built-in + dynamic + plugin)

Relationship with hermes tools

The hermes tools command provides a curses-based UI to toggle individual tools per platform. This operates at the tool level (finer than toolsets) and is persisted to config.yaml. Disabled tools are filtered out even if their toolset is enabled.

See also: Tools Reference for the full list of individual tools and their parameters.