Updating Hermes Without Breaking Workflows

Updates are important, but production workflows deserve a small safety process. This is especially true when Hermes runs gateway bots, cron jobs, custom skills, or business automations.

Before updating

Record the current state:

hermes --version
hermes config path
hermes profile list
hermes tools list
hermes gateway status
hermes cron list

Back up profiles, custom skills, critical config, and any workflow state files. Do not rely on memory alone to reconstruct a working setup.

Update path

Use the supported Hermes update mechanism for the installation type. After updating, start with health checks instead of immediately running production jobs.

hermes doctor
hermes config check

Smoke tests

Run one safe test per important surface:

• CLI prompt responds
• Model provider authenticates
• Gateway can receive or send a test message
• Cron jobs are listed correctly
• Critical tools still appear
• A known workflow can run in dry-run or draft-only mode

Rollback planning

For business-critical systems, keep a known-good backup and avoid updating immediately before a launch, campaign, event, or deadline.

Final note

If a workflow breaks after update, capture the exact error, active profile, provider, and command output before changing multiple things at once.