Resuming Hermes Between SSH and tmux

Resuming Hermes Between SSH and tmux | Generated by AI

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Question: Suppose we run Hermes Agent in an SSH session of a server, then cancel it and exit. Can we resume it in a tmux session, or vice versa?

Answer:

Core Concepts

Yes, absolutely. You can seamlessly transition your Hermes Agent workspace between raw SSH sessions and tmux sessions. However, it is important to understand exactly how this works based on the framework’s architecture, as there are two completely different ways to accomplish this depending on whether you want to resume the process or resume the state.

Method 1: Resuming via Native Hermes Session Management (Recommended)

Hermes Agent natively abstracts session management into a persistent SQLite state database (state.db). Every conversation, memory context, and tool state is automatically tracked by a unique Session ID or a human-readable title.

If you abruptly kill or disconnect an SSH terminal while the agent is running:

The physical OS process might be terminated by the OS hangup signal (SIGHUP).
The agent’s progress and conversation context are safely stored in the database.

To resume your work inside a tmux session (or vice versa):

Log back into your server and attach/open your tmux session.
Run the following command to pick up exactly where you left off:

hermes --continue
# OR use the shorthand flag:
hermes -c

Note: The --continue or -c flag automatically re-attaches you to your most recent session. If you want a specific past session, you can list them with hermes sessions list and resume via hermes --resume <session-id-or-title>. You can also opt into automated resume behavior in the TUI by setting the environment variable export HERMES_TUI_RESUME=1 in your shell configuration.

Method 2: Resuming via Linux Process Persistence (`tmux`)

If your true goal is to prevent the agent’s running terminal process from being interrupted at all when you disconnect from SSH, you should launch Hermes inside tmux from the very beginning.

The standard SSH pitfall: If you start hermes directly in a raw SSH session and close the terminal window, the OS kills your terminal shell and everything running inside it. You can still use Method 1 (hermes -c) to load the state history into a new process, but any long-running tool or generation loop that was actively processing at the moment of disconnection will have been aborted.
The multiplexer advantage: If you log into SSH, spin up a tmux multiplexer (tmux new -s hermes_session), and run hermes inside it, the process belongs to the persistent tmux server. If your SSH connection drops, the agent keeps executing in the background. You can reconnect via SSH later and run tmux a -t hermes_session to view the live terminal output precisely as you left it.

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