The powerful engine behind everything.
Hermes Agent runs quietly in the background on your machine. It routes your chats to any AI provider, remembers conversations, manages files, schedules tasks, and ships with 8 custom plugins out of the box. SwitchUI talks to it automatically — you never configure the connection manually.
Three things working together behind the scenes.
Gateway
The main chat engine. Talks to any AI provider — Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter, Ollama, or any OpenAI-compatible server. Streams responses back in real time.
Dashboard
The management layer. Handles sessions, skills, memory, kanban boards, background jobs, and configuration. Without it, chat still works — but the extended features stay hidden.
Capability Probing
SwitchUI checks what the agent can do on startup and only shows pages that are actually available. If something is missing, the interface simply hides it — no errors, no broken pages.
Three ways to extend what the agent can do.
Plugins
Built-in packages that add new capabilities to the agent — workflows, kanban boards, fleet management, and more. SwitchUI bundles 8 custom plugins.
MCP Servers
Connect external tool servers so the agent can use their tools. Install and manage them from the MCP page in SwitchUI.
Skills
Reusable instructions the agent follows during conversations. Browse, edit, and create them from the Skills page.