The Hermes Pixel Office is a free, open source dashboard that turns every one of your Hermes agents into a pixel character sitting at a desk, so you can watch them work in real time.
It comes from Teknium, one of the people behind Nous Research — the same team that builds Hermes Agent.
There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to unlock.
This guide covers what it is, how to set it up in the browser or VS Code, what every character and animation means, how the approval flags work, and the tips worth knowing before you install it.
What is the Hermes Pixel Office?
It is a live visual dashboard for Hermes agents.
Every agent session becomes a pixel character in a shared cartoon office.
You watch them walk in through the door, sit down, get to work, then stand up and walk back out when they finish.
That is it. You read the whole state of your system at a glance, like looking through a window into a real room.
It is free and open source, built by Teknium at Nous Research — the same team behind Hermes Agent itself.
The problem it solves
Hermes agents normally work in the background.
They run tools. They spin up helper agents. They get real work done.
And you cannot see any of it.
You hit go, then sit staring at a blinking cursor and a wall of scrolling text, with no idea whether your agents are working, stuck, or already finished.
The Pixel Office takes all of that invisible activity and draws it.
My whole agent OS runs on Hermes, so when I open the office I am watching my own system work, live, in one little room.
How to set it up
Two ways to run it, and you get the same office either way.
Option 1 — in your browser. Open it as its own page. Simplest route, and it fits how most people already work.
Option 2 — in VS Code. Drop it in and the office sits in a panel next to your code while you work. You also get a “+ agent” button that starts a fresh Hermes run without leaving the editor.
Use demo mode first. It ships with a demo that fills the office with pretend agents, so you can see how everything looks and moves before wiring up your real setup. It is the fastest way to learn what each character means.
Remote setups work out of the box. If you run your agent OS on a server, you still get the office on your own screen with no extra wrestling.
How to use it: reading the characters
Every agent session is one character. It does not matter where it came from — the command line, a chat app, or a job set to run on a schedule. They all walk in as their own little person.
Helper agents wear a gold collar and a name tag. These are sub-agents a bigger agent spins up for a side task, and the tag shows their job. So you instantly know who is a main worker and who was pulled in to help.
An empty desk means the job is done. When an agent finishes, it stands up and walks out the door.
What each animation means
| What you see | What the agent is doing |
|---|---|
| Character typing | Writing a file |
| Little book open | Reading something |
| Browsing animation | Browsing the web |
| Green monitor flicker | Running something in the terminal |
| Red exclamation mark | Waiting for your approval |
| Stands up and walks out | Task finished |
You do not have to read a single log line. You just look at the room.
How the approval flags work
Sometimes an agent hits a command that could be risky, and it needs you to say yes or no before it goes ahead.
In the Pixel Office that agent throws up a bright red exclamation mark over its head.
The top of the screen shows a counter — something like “2 waiting”.
So instead of scrolling through walls of text working out whether anything is stuck waiting on you, you glance over and see exactly who needs you.
There is also an optional chime. It dings when an agent needs your okay, or when a helper finishes its job. It is off by default — flip it on and you do not even have to be looking at the screen.
One shared office for every agent
Every Hermes agent running on your machine shares the same office.
So if you have several things going at once, they all pile into one room together.
One window, your whole team.
What it does not do
This is the thing most people get wrong.
When people see a live dashboard like this, they assume it slows their agents down, or gets in the way, or drags on them under the hood.
It does not.
The Pixel Office is a window and nothing more. It watches what your agents are already doing and draws it out for you. It never blocks them, never changes their work, and never adds any weight to how they run. Your agents do not even know it is there.
It is also not a controller. Keep your agents’ own safety rules turned on — the red flag just tells you when to look, and you are still the one who says yes or no to anything risky.
Old way vs new way
| Old way | New way |
|---|---|
| Stare at scrolling logs and hope. | Glance at a room and know. |
| Find out something stalled an hour later. | See the character stop moving. |
| Hunt through text for approval prompts. | Red flag over the head, counter at the top. |
| No idea which agent is which. | Gold collars and name tags on helpers. |
| Guess whether a batch finished. | Characters walk out when they are done. |
🔥 Want this exact setup on your own machine?
Inside the AI Profit Boardroom you get the full Agent OS zip ready to install — the same setup I run with Hermes as the brain, so the Pixel Office plugs straight in. Plus a 30-day roadmap, Hermes and Pixel Office walkthroughs, and four live coaching calls every week with 4,000+ members.
Three ways I use it
Watching a content series get built. I kicked off a batch of Hermes agents to draft hooks, scripts and captions. Each helper popped up as a gold-collared character — one typing, one reading through notes, all at the same time. When one hit a step that needed my okay, the red flag appeared and I knew the exact second to step in.
Checking a member onboarding flow. Agents laid out the welcome messages, first-call prep and resource walkthroughs. Watching each character finish and walk out told me at a glance the whole flow was done and nothing was silently stuck.
Running a lead generation system. I fire off a group of agents to plan content, hooks and follow-ups, then watch the office fill up. One look shows who is working, who finished, and who is waiting on me — instead of ten open tabs.
It does not do the work for me. It finally lets me see the work.
Four tips before you install it
One — try the demo first. Learn what every character means on pretend agents before connecting anything real.
Two — if you live in VS Code, put it there. Same office in a panel next to your code, plus the “+ agent” button.
Three — remember it is a window, not a controller. Keep your agents’ own safety rules on.
Four — it works over a remote connection out of the box. Server-hosted agent OS, office on your own screen, no extra setup.
Who it is for
If you run one agent occasionally, you probably do not need it.
If you run batches of agents with helper agents underneath them, it turns an unreadable wall of text into something you can supervise in a second.
And if your whole operating system runs on Hermes, it is the missing window into your own business.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Hermes Pixel Office?
A free, open source dashboard from Teknium at Nous Research showing every Hermes agent as a pixel character in a shared office.
How do I set it up?
Demo mode first, then run it as a browser page or a VS Code panel and connect your Hermes setup.
Does it slow my agents down?
No — it only draws what they are already doing and never blocks or changes their work.
What do gold collars mean?
Helper agents spun up by a bigger agent, with a name tag showing their job.
How do I know an agent needs approval?
A red exclamation mark over that character, a waiting counter at the top, and an optional chime.
About Julian
I’m Julian Goldie, founder of a 7-figure SEO and link building agency (Goldie Agency, 70+ team) and the AI Profit Boardroom.
400K+ YouTube subscribers, 163K X followers, 29K+ Udemy students, and author of Link Building Mastery.
My entire agent OS runs on Hermes, so everything above comes from using this on real work rather than reading the readme.
Also on our network
More on the Pixel Office: juliangoldie.co.uk and goldstarlinks.com.
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The Hermes Pixel Office is a free open little office where you finally get to see your AI team work, instead of staring at text and hoping for the best.
