AgentPlaybooks Tools for Hermes

!AgentPlaybooks Tools for Hermes

The AgentPlaybooks Tools plugin helps Hermes use skills and tools from your playbooks. It guides you through connecting hosted MCP tools, including federated MCP and OpenAPI services, setting up authentication, and syncing private skills into the selected Hermes profile. It complements the separate AgentPlaybooks Memory plugin.

The plugin installs a skill, not a background service. It uses the separately installed apb CLI to make reviewed changes to the selected Hermes profile. Credentials are configured in that profile's secret environment or in the AgentPlaybooks vault; the plugin never asks you to paste a secret into chat.

Install

The Hermes catalog package is named agentplaybooks-tools:

hermes plugins install agentplaybooks-tools --no-enable
hermes plugins enable agentplaybooks-tools
npm install -g @agentplaybooks/cli@0.10.0
apb --version

The CLI requires Node.js 20 or newer. For a remote Hermes gateway, install Node.js and apb on the gateway host/container. Installing this skill into a remote profile does not install the CLI on your Mac or gateway.

Guided setup (CLI 0.8.0)

Run these commands on the gateway host/container, in the project directory. --profile=work selects a named profile beneath the installation home; --hermes-home=/path selects the installation home explicitly. Use the same selection for setup, connect, memory setup and diagnostics.

apb login
apb hermes setup <playbook-guid> . --profile=work
apb hermes setup <playbook-guid> . --profile=work --apply
apb hermes doctor <playbook-guid> . --profile=work --check

The preview checks Node.js, Hermes, destination permissions and credential presence, then lists the playbook files to restore and the profile config to merge. Restore includes complete skill trees and their bundled resources. Hosted MCP/OpenAPI definitions stay behind the playbook's single MCP endpoint. Existing conflicts stop the whole setup. Hosted tools use a single playbook MCP connection; upstream service keys remain in the AgentPlaybooks vault.

The default connection references APBKS_KEY_AGENTPLAYBOOKS. Configure a playbook-scoped key in the selected profile's secret environment; apb login separately authenticates skill downloads with your account key. --tools-only skips file restoration and account login. Keys are never copied into config.

--apply verifies MCP initialization and tool listing using this process's key environment, without invoking any tool. A missing/rejected key gives exit code 2 even if the files were installed: configure the key, restart the gateway and rerun doctor --check from that environment. A variable declared in the profile's .env is reported separately; it does not prove the running gateway loaded it. doctor without --check makes no network calls.

Connect a playbook's tools

Authenticate the CLI, then preview a scoped connection:

apb login
apb connect <playbook-guid> --target=hermes

Review the plan. It shows the environment variable name for the required playbook-scoped API key. Add that secret to the selected Hermes profile, then apply the connection:

apb connect <playbook-guid> --target=hermes --apply

The connection exposes the playbook's hosted MCP tools, including configured federated MCP and OpenAPI services. Upstream service credentials stay in the AgentPlaybooks vault; Hermes receives tool access without the upstream secret values being copied into its configuration.

Add private skills

Pull the reviewed skill files into the project and sync them to Hermes:

apb pull <playbook-guid> .
apb pull <playbook-guid> . --apply
apb sync . --target=hermes
apb sync . --target=hermes --apply

Each command without --apply previews its changes. Review the plan before applying it. Public skills can also be installed directly from a playbook's /.well-known/skills/ URL.

For details about the CLI and authentication scopes, see the CLI guide and Hermes Memory guide.

Hermes connections without idle HTTP traffic

CLI 0.8.1 creates Hermes connections through apb mcp stdio. Hermes communicates with this local process over stdin/stdout; the relay contacts the AgentPlaybooks JSON MCP endpoint only for actual requests. Local ping requests never reach the hosted server. There is no network keepalive, polling or automatic retry. Keys come from the selected profile's environment, never command arguments.