Skip to content

docs(cli): clarify hermes -z version boundary and one-shot timeout behavior #25501

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Closed
konsisumer wants to merge 1 commit into from
Closed

docs(cli): clarify hermes -z version boundary and one-shot timeout behavior #25501

Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
1 commit
Select commit
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
26 changes: 25 additions & 1 deletion website/docs/user-guide/cli.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -19,7 +19,8 @@ Hermes also ships a modern TUI with modal overlays, mouse selection, and non-blo
hermes

# Single query mode (non-interactive)
hermes chat -q "Hello"
hermes chat -q "Hello" # Portable across all versions
hermes -z "Hello" # One-shot mode (v0.12.0+) — prints only the final response

# With a specific model
hermes chat --model "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4"
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -47,6 +48,29 @@ hermes -w # Interactive mode in worktree
hermes -w -q "Fix issue #123" # Single query in worktree
```

## One-Shot / Non-Interactive Invocation

For scripts, pipes, and automation there are two non-interactive entry points:

| Invocation | Available since | Notes |
|------------|-----------------|-------|
| `hermes chat -q "prompt"` | All releases | Portable across every Hermes version. Prints the final response plus session info. |
| `hermes -z "prompt"` | v0.12.0 (v2026.4.30) | Top-level one-shot mode. Prints **only** the final response text — no banner, spinner, tool previews, or session line. Pairs with top-level `-m/--model` and `--provider`. |

`hermes -z` / `--oneshot` was added in **v0.12.0**; releases before that only ship
`hermes chat -q`. Scripts that must run against older installs should prefer
`hermes chat -q`, or check `hermes --version` before using `-z`.

:::info Bounding run time
Neither `hermes -z` nor `hermes chat -q` accepts a `--timeout` flag — there is no
built-in time limit for a one-shot run. To bound execution time, wrap the call with
your own timeout, e.g. the shell `timeout` command or a subprocess timeout:

```bash
timeout 300 hermes -z "summarize this repo"
```
:::

@teknium1 teknium1 Jul 13, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

timeout is the GNU coreutils utility rather than a portable shell command. Please label this as GNU/Linux/coreutils-specific and add a portable Python subprocess example or platform-specific alternatives.

## Interface Layout

<img className="docs-terminal-figure" src="/img/docs/cli-layout.svg" alt="Stylized preview of the Hermes CLI layout showing the banner, conversation area, and fixed input prompt." />
Expand Down
Loading