The Hermes Playbook
Your own chief of staff. Open source. One flat subscription.
Hermes is the most-starred open-source AI agent on GitHub. This playbook shows you how to run it on your own machine, power it with a single ChatGPT subscription instead of per-token API bills, and stand up the exact automations that run Ential and the Drake household, five for your business and five for your life.
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Ryan Drake
Founder, Ential · Updated July 2026 · 8 min read
01. What Is Hermes?
An open-source AI agent that lives on your machine and actually does the work.
Every AI tool you pay for by the token forgets you the moment you close the tab. Hermes does not. It is the most-starred open-source agent on GitHub, it runs on your own machine, and it takes real action for you: reading your inbox, updating your CRM, booking things, drafting the boring parts, and reporting back through whatever channel you like (Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack, email).
The difference from a normal AI assistant is agency. A chatbot answers a question and forgets you. Hermes holds context about you, your business, and your family, then runs recurring work on a schedule without being asked. Think of it less as a tool and more as a chief of staff that never sleeps.
Everything in this playbook is a real, running Hermes setup. At Ential it shows up as Donna: the assistant that runs the morning brief, triages the pipeline, plans date night, and keeps the books honest. By the end you will have the same thing, on your hardware, for a flat monthly cost.
"Your agent. Your machine. Your data. One subscription instead of a metered API bill."
- Runs 24/7 on your own computer or a cheap server
- Connects to email, calendar, CRM, project tools, and messaging apps
- Runs recurring jobs on a schedule (briefs, reviews, reminders)
- Powered by frontier models through a subscription, not per-token pricing
- Fully private: your data stays where you put it
- Extensible with skills for anything you do more than once
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Have Donna Installed In Your Life And Business
Donna is this exact Hermes setup, done for you. We install and tune your models, your channels, your business tools, and the personal automations that matter, around how you actually work, until it just runs.
- Your models and channels wired up and signed in
- Business tools connected: inbox, calendar, CRM, the books
- Personal automations set: briefs, reviews, date night, reminders
- Tuned until it just works, then it runs on autopilot
$3,990 to set up, plus $99 a month to keep her running. An executive assistant costs $85,000 a year. Donna’s first year costs roughly 4 weeks of one, and she never resigns.
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