Running Many Gateways at Once

Operate multiple profiles — each with its own bot tokens, sessions, and memory — as managed services on a single machine. This page covers the operational concerns: starting them all together, viewing logs across profiles, preventing the host from sleeping, and recovering from common launchd/systemd quirks.

If you only run one Hermes agent, you don't need this page — see Profiles for the basics. And if your instances live on different machines that one desktop app should reach simultaneously, see Connecting Desktop to Many Hermes Instances.

When to use this

You want this setup when you have two or more Hermes agents that should all be online at the same time. Common reasons:

A personal assistant on one Telegram bot and a coding agent on another
One agent per family member or one per Slack workspace
Sandbox + production instances of the same configuration
A research agent + a writing agent + a cron-driven bot — each with isolated memory and skills

Every profile already gets its own per-platform LaunchAgent (ai.hermes.gateway-<name>.plist) or systemd user service (hermes-gateway-<name>.service). This guide adds the patterns for managing them collectively.

Quick start

bash

# Create profiles (once)
hermes profile create coder
hermes profile create personal-bot
hermes profile create research

# Configure each
coder setup
personal-bot setup
research setup

# Install each gateway as a managed service
coder gateway install
personal-bot gateway install
research gateway install

# Start them all
coder gateway start
personal-bot gateway start
research gateway start

That's it — three independent agents, each on its own process, restarting automatically on crash and on user login.

Alternative: one gateway for all profiles (multiplexing)

The model above runs one process per profile. That is the default and is the right choice for most setups. But on a host with many profiles — or a container deployment where one process per profile is operationally heavy — you can instead run a single multiplexing gateway: the default profile's gateway becomes the sole inbound process and serves messages for every profile on the box.

This is opt-in and off by default. When it's off, nothing on this page changes — every behavior below is inert.

When to prefer multiplexing

A container/VPS deployment where N supervisor units, N ports, and N PID files are a burden.
Many low-traffic profiles that don't each justify a full process.
You want a single thing to start, monitor, and restart.

Stick with one-process-per-profile when you want hard process-level isolation between profiles (separate memory footprints, independent crash domains, the ability to restart one profile without touching the others).

How to opt in

Set the flag on the default profile (it owns the multiplexer) and restart its gateway:

bash

hermes config set gateway.multiplex_profiles true
hermes gateway restart

Equivalently, in the default profile's ~/.hermes/config.yaml:

yaml

gateway:
  multiplex_profiles: true

(The flag is also accepted as a top-level multiplex_profiles: true for convenience.) On the next start the default gateway enumerates every profile, brings up each profile's enabled platforms under that profile's own credentials, and routes each inbound message to the profile it belongs to. Each turn resolves the routed profile's config, skills, memory, SOUL, and provider keys — credentials are never shared across profiles.

You do not run hermes gateway start for the secondary profiles — the default gateway serves them. See the contract changes below.

What changes when multiplexing is on

Enabling the flag changes how a few things behave. All of these revert the moment the flag is off.

1. Secondary profiles must not start their own gateway

With a multiplexer running, a named-profile hermes gateway run, start, install or restart is a hard error (exit code 78), pointing you back at the multiplexer:

The default gateway is running as a profile multiplexer and already serves
profile 'coder'. ...

The refusal happens in the CLI before any service manager is touched, so a served profile never ends up with a permanently failed systemd unit or a launchd respawn loop. hermes -p coder gateway stop refuses the same way (exit 78) when coder has no gateway of its own — there is nothing to stop but the multiplexer, which hermes gateway stop on the default profile takes down for every served profile. The dashboard and Desktop app follow the CLI: for a served profile the "Start" and "Stop" gateway actions answer 409 with the same explanation (rendered as an inline notice on the System page), and "Restart" restarts the multiplexer (the process that actually serves the profile) instead of spawning a -p coder gateway restart that could only fail. Because that restart reconnects every bot on the device, both apps first ask "Restart the shared gateway? All bots on this device reconnect: default, coder, research" (the list is the running gateway's served_profiles) and report "Shared gateway restarted (3 bots)" when it completes. A standalone profile keeps the plain restart. /api/status?profile=coder carries the same list as gateway_shared_with (null for a standalone gateway). "Served" is read from the running gateway's own record (served_profiles in the default home's gateway_state.json), so it stays correct when the multiplexer was enabled only through GATEWAY_MULTIPLEX_PROFILES in the default profile's environment, or when profiles were added after the gateway started.

The multiplexer is the single inbound process; a second profile gateway would double-bind that profile's platforms. Pass --force (accepted by run, start, install and restart) only if you deliberately want a separate process for that profile (not recommended while the multiplexer is running). The cross-profile lifecycle wrapper script earlier on this page is therefore not used in multiplex mode — you only manage the default gateway.

2. HTTP-inbound platforms are reached via a `/p/<profile>/` URL prefix

HTTP-inbound traffic for a secondary profile arrives on the default profile's one listener under a profile prefix, not a second port:

# default profile
POST >
# the "coder" profile, same listener
POST >

An unknown or unconfigured profile in the prefix returns 404. The shared listener is the default profile's api_server port (or its webhook port when no API server is enabled); it serves three kinds of profile-prefixed paths:

api_server and webhook are mirrored, never duplicated. /p/coder/v1/... and /p/coder/webhooks/<route> are answered by the default profile's own adapter under coder's scope. A secondary must therefore not enable api_server or webhook itself (the dashboard refuses with 409; an API_SERVER_KEY or WEBHOOK_ENABLED in the secondary's .env wires the credential without starting a listener).
Every other inbound-port platform runs in shared-listener mode. A secondary that configures Twilio SMS, LINE, Teams, BlueBubbles, Microsoft Graph, WhatsApp Cloud, WeCom callback or Feishu webhook mode gets its own adapter instance built without a port; the default listener forwards /p/<profile>/<the adapter's usual path> to it. See Inbound-port platforms under the multiplexer.

Authentication follows the profile named in the URL. Unprefixed endpoints keep using the default listener's existing credentials.

/p/coder/... API-server requests must use API_SERVER_KEY from ~/.hermes/profiles/coder/.env; the default listener key is rejected. Under the multiplexer that key only authenticates the prefix — it does not turn on a second api_server listener in the secondary profile, so you do not need to pin platforms.api_server.enabled: false in the secondary's config.yaml.
A webhook route that targets coder must declare profile: coder beside its existing route-specific secret in the default profile's config.yaml. That secret is then accepted only at /p/coder/webhooks/<route> and is rejected on every other profile prefix.
Webhook routes without profile remain default-profile routes and are not reachable through a named profile prefix.
Delivery follows the same binding. A profile: coder route's reply (or deliver_only message) goes out through coder's adapter for the deliver platform, falls back to coder's home channel when deliver_extra.chat_id is unset, and a github_comment delivery runs gh with GH_TOKEN / GITHUB_TOKEN from profiles/coder/.env. If coder has no adapter for that platform the delivery fails (502) rather than posting as another profile's bot; a default route likewise never borrows a platform that is enabled only on a secondary profile.
/p/coder/api/platforms/<platform>/events callbacks are verified and dispatched by coder's adapter; when coder has none the callback is a 503.

Named API requests fail closed when the target profile has no API_SERVER_KEY. Security configuration errors remain fatal: for example, an open own-policy platform without GATEWAY_ALLOW_ALL_USERS or its platform-specific allow-all opt-in still aborts gateway startup rather than silently dropping the unsafe profile.

Inbound-port platforms under the multiplexer

A standalone hermes -p coder gateway run binds coder's Twilio, LINE, Teams, … webhook servers on their own ports. Under the multiplexer those adapters are still coder's — same credentials from profiles/coder/.env, same config.yaml, replies sent through coder's channel — but they bind no port. The default profile's shared listener forwards /p/coder/<path> to them, where <path> is exactly the path the adapter would serve standalone. The request is verified by coder's adapter with coder's secret (Twilio auth token, LINE channel secret, Teams app credentials, BlueBubbles password, …) and runs under coder's runtime scope; the default profile's own /path is untouched, and a profile that has no adapter for a path gets 404, never another profile's bot.

Platform	Secondary profile's callback URL on the shared listener	Verified with the named profile's
Twilio SMS (`sms`)	`>/p/<profile>/webhooks/twilio`	`TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN` signature (`SMS_WEBHOOK_URL` must be this URL)
LINE (`line`)	`>/p/<profile>/line/webhook` (media: `/p/<profile>/line/media/...`)	`LINE_CHANNEL_SECRET`
Microsoft Teams (`teams`)	`>/p/<profile>/api/messages`	Bot Framework token for `TEAMS_CLIENT_ID`
BlueBubbles (`bluebubbles`)	`>/p/<profile>/bluebubbles-webhook` (registered with the server automatically)	`BLUEBUBBLES_PASSWORD`
Microsoft Graph (`msgraph_webhook`)	`>/p/<profile>/msgraph/webhook`	`extra.client_state`
WhatsApp Cloud (`whatsapp_cloud`)	`>/p/<profile>/whatsapp/webhook`	`WHATSAPP_CLOUD_APP_SECRET` / verify token
WeCom callback (`wecom_callback`)	`>/p/<profile>/wecom/callback`	the app's callback token / AES key
Feishu webhook mode (`feishu`)	`>/p/<profile>/feishu/webhook`	`FEISHU_VERIFICATION_TOKEN` / `FEISHU_ENCRYPT_KEY`

<host> is the public hostname (tunnel, reverse proxy) in front of the default profile's listener; a custom webhook_path in the profile's config moves the path after /p/<profile> accordingly. The gateway logs the exact URL at startup:

[sms] profile 'coder' is served on the default profile's shared listener:
 (point the vendor's callback URL at this path ...)

and every status surface repeats it, so you know what to paste into the vendor console:

$ hermes -p coder gateway status
✓ Gateway is running via the default-profile multiplexer
  Manage it from the default profile: hermes gateway status

Inbound callback URLs on the shared listener:
  line: 
  sms:

hermes gateway status and hermes status on the default profile list the same URLs per served profile, and the dashboard's Channels page and the Desktop Messaging page show them as each platform's ingress_url when viewing that profile. The default's own api_server and webhook are reported the same way for a served profile — as connected with ingress_url(respectively.../p/coder/webhooks/<route>) — since the profile has no adapter of its own for them; it is the default's listener answering under the /p/coder/prefix. A per-profileSMS_WEBHOOK_PORT, LINE_PORT, TEAMS_PORT, … in a secondary's .env` is ignored under the multiplexer (nothing binds); it applies again the moment that profile runs its own standalone gateway.

3. Per-credential platforms still need their own token per profile

Polling/connection platforms (Telegram, Discord, Slack, Matrix, Signal, …) work fine multiplexed, but each profile that enables one must supply its own bot token — the same token cannot be polled by two profiles at once. If two profiles configure the same (platform, token), the gateway logs an error naming both profiles and parks the duplicate adapter (it shows as fatal / duplicate_credential in runtime status) while the first claimant and every other profile keep running — the gateway itself does not exit. The default profile's adapters connect first and claim their credentials, so the parked adapter is always the secondary's (see Token-conflict safety — the rule is unchanged, it's just enforced inside the one process now).

4. Session keys are namespaced by profile

Each profile's sessions live under an agent:<profile>:… namespace so two profiles on the same platform/chat never collide in the shared session store. The default profile keeps the historical agent:main:… namespace byte-for-byte, so existing default-profile sessions are unaffected — no migration, no orphaned history. Every gateway path that reads a key back — delegation completions after a restart, shutdown notices, a per-user-thread /stop of a sibling's run, /undo, QQ approval buttons — accepts the agent:<profile>:… shape too, so secondary profiles get the same behaviour as the default one.

Each profile's rows land in its own state.db: a named profile's under profiles/<name>/state.db, the default profile's under the launch home — even when the write happens inside another profile's routed turn or background tick. The Desktop/TUI backend's own store is likewise pinned to the home it launched under, and a Bot Chat's side agents (prompt.background) persist next to their parent conversation.

5. One PID/lock and one status surface

There is a single process-level PID and lock (the multiplexer, under the default home). hermes status on the default profile reports the multiplexer and lists the profiles it serves (Serves: coder, research); hermes -p coder status, hermes -p coder gateway status and hermes -p coder cron status all report "running via the default-profile multiplexer" instead of "stopped", and the dashboard's /api/status?profile=coder / Channels page report the multiplexer as coder's running gateway (with coder's own adapters as its platforms). The single gateway_state.json lives under the default home: secondary adapters appear there as <profile>:<platform> entries beside served_profiles; nothing is written under a secondary profile's home.

What does not change

Per-profile .env credential isolation is preserved and, if anything, stricter: a profile's keys are resolved from its own scope and are never unioned into a shared environment. Subprocesses like MCP servers and Kanban workers only ever see their own profile's secrets — including credentials injected by an external secret source (1Password, Bitwarden, …): a stdio MCP server started for profile B receives B's value for such a name, or nothing if B has none, never the default profile's. MCP servers are connected per profile: two profiles that both name a server github with their own token get two connections and each sees only its own tools; profiles whose mcp_servers entry is identical (same route and credentials) share one connection, and an owner's /reload-mcp re-registers the sharing profiles' tools without them reloading. Terminal settings (terminal.backend, terminal.cwd, terminal.docker_volumes, terminal.docker_shared_container_key, SSH targets, …) are likewise resolved per profile on every routed turn: a profile that omits a terminal key gets the documented default, never the launch profile's value, and a profile whose config.yaml/.env cannot be parsed has terminal execution refused rather than run under another profile's sandbox policy. The media-delivery credential guard (the denylist behind MEDIA: attachments — .env, auth.json, config.yaml, state.db, session transcripts, OAuth token stores) covers every profile under profiles/, so no profile's turn can attach another profile's secrets or chat history to a reply. Authorization is per profile too: GATEWAY_ALLOW_ALL_USERS, GATEWAY_ALLOWED_USERS and every platform allowlist or allow-all opt-in are read from the owning profile's .env — the default profile opting into open access never opens a secondary profile's bot, and a secondary that opts in only in its own .env is honored. The same holds for per-bot behaviour written in a profile's config.yaml (require_mention, mention_patterns, allow_bots, reactions, auto_thread, dm_policy, ignored_channels, Matrix session_scope, …): a secondary profile's YAML never lands in the shared process environment, so it cannot become the default profile's policy, and the default profile's YAML never governs a secondary bot. The terminal.env_passthrough allowlist, the Yuanbao auto-designated home channel, and the write guards protecting each profile's own config.yaml are resolved per profile as well. Kanban, profile-scoped skills/memory/SOUL, and model routing all behave per-profile exactly as they do with separate gateways.

Outbound identity is per profile too. A turn running for profile P that calls the send_message tool (send, react, media) posts through P's own bot; so do the "Gateway shutting down/restarted" and /update notices for P's sessions, /loop wakeups set from P's chats, and the Discord unauthorized-slash operator alert of P's Discord bot (to P's home channel). If P has no connected bot for that platform the send fails with a clear error — it never falls back to the default profile's bot.

Tool and memory-provider credentials follow the same rule. Hosted OCR (FIRECRAWL_API_KEY), Modal / Browser Use cloud gates, the mem0 OSS OpenAI key, xAI video, and every memory-provider identity (MEM0_USER_ID, SUPERMEMORY_CONTAINER_TAG, RETAINDB_PROJECT, OPENVIKING_ACCOUNT/USER, HINDSIGHT_BANK_ID, HERMES_HONCHO_HOST) are read from the routed profile's .env, so a secondary profile's memories land in its account/bank/project (or the provider's per-profile default), never the default profile's. Custom endpoints travel with their keys — OPENAI_BASE_URL, XAI_BASE_URL, NOUS_INFERENCE_BASE_URL, GATEWAY_PROXY_URL, Firecrawl / Browserbase / RetainDB / Supermemory / Honcho / Hindsight URLs — so a profile's key is never sent to another profile's proxy or self-hosted server. WEIXIN_HOME_CHANNEL, HERMES_LANGUAGE and display.language, and hooks.outbound[].secret_env are likewise per profile, and end-of-session memory extraction for an evicted secondary session runs under that profile's scope.

Per-turn runtime settings follow the routed profile as well: agent.max_turns, fallback_providers, file_read_max_chars, tool_output.*, browser.* timeouts, timezone (including the TZ handed to execute_code sandboxes), the media-delivery policy (gateway.strict, media_delivery_allow_dirs, trust_recent_files*) and the Nous auth.json used for auxiliary calls are all read from the profile serving the turn, never from the profile the gateway was launched under. The same holds for per-profile state files (processes.json, checkpoints/, sandbox snapshot stores, Feishu comment rules/pairing) and for gateway hooks: each profile's hooks/ directory is loaded on its own and fires only for that profile's events. Shell hooks run with the routed profile's HERMES_HOME, without the default profile's secrets in their environment, and their stdin payload carries a profile field naming the profile that fired them.

What is isolated per profile

A quick reference for what a multiplexed turn resolves from its own profile and never shares with the default or any sibling:

Concern	Resolved from	Behaviour when the profile lacks it
Provider keys, bot tokens, `${VAR}` refs in `config.yaml`	The profile's own `.env` (its secret scope)	Unresolved / no adapter — never the default profile's value
Authorization (`GATEWAY_ALLOW_ALL_USERS`, `GATEWAY_ALLOWED_USERS`, per-platform allowlists and allow-all opt-ins)	The owning profile's `.env` and `config.yaml`	Closed — a default-profile opt-in never opens a secondary's bot
HTTP endpoints (`/p/<profile>/api/...`, `/p/<profile>/webhooks/...`, platform event callbacks)	The named profile's `API_SERVER_KEY`, `profile:`-bound webhook routes, and its own adapter	`401`/`404`; delivery without an adapter is `502`/`503`, never another profile's bot
Inbound-port platforms (`/p/<profile>/webhooks/twilio`, `/p/<profile>/line/webhook`, `/p/<profile>/api/messages`, …)	The named profile's own adapter and its secret (Twilio auth token, LINE channel secret, Teams app, BlueBubbles password, …); replies leave through that adapter	`401`/`403` on a wrong secret, `404` when the profile has no such adapter — never the default profile's adapter
Adapter settings (`_REQUIRE_MENTION`, `_REACTIONS`, `*_PROXY`, webhook host/port/URL, Matrix thread/session/E2EE policy, Discord backfill/attachment caps, Buzz reply mode, A2A agent card)	The owning profile's `.env` and `config.yaml`	The adapter's documented default — never the default profile's setting
`MEDIA:` attachment denylist	Every home under `profiles/` plus the default home, enumerated at check time	A turn can never attach another profile's `.env`, `auth.json`, `state.db`, sessions or token stores
stdio MCP child environment	Safe baseline + the profile's scoped values for secret-source names + the server's own `env:`	A name the profile lacks is absent from the child — no default-profile fallthrough
Outbound egress (`send_message`, shutdown/restart/`/update` notices, `/loop` wakeups, `profile:`-bound webhook delivery, `github_comment` tokens)	The profile's own connected adapter and `.env`	Clear failure; never posts through the default profile's bot
Session namespace	`agent:<profile>:…` (default keeps `agent:main:…`)	Two profiles on the same chat never share history
Logs	`agent.log` / `errors.log` / `gateway.log` under the profile's own home	—
Terminal sandbox settings (`terminal.*`, SSH targets)	The profile's `config.yaml`	Documented default; unparsable config → execution refused
Working directory of a turn (unset `terminal.cwd`)	Same rule as a standalone gateway: `$HOME` for the local backend, sandbox default otherwise	Never the directory the multiplexer process was launched from
Command approvals (`command_allowlist`, "always" choices)	The profile's own `config.yaml`	A default-profile "always" never pre-approves a secondary's command; a secondary's choice is saved to its own config
Sandbox credential-file mounts (`terminal.credential_files`), `security.redact_secrets`, `browser.` engine/headed flags, `lsp.`, auxiliary-provider health marks, `logs/mcp-stderr.log`	The profile's own `config.yaml` / `.env`	Documented default — never the launch profile's cached value
Cloud-SDK credential clients (Bedrock boto3 clients + model discovery, Azure Entra credential), credential-fetched catalogs (DeepInfra, Copilot context limits, Nous reasoning caps, Ramp Router efforts, xAI / OpenRouter image models, custom-endpoint `/models`), Camofox VNC address, computer-use aux-vision routing, skill-sync push, remote-backend probe text, learned image token costs, `display.skin`, guest-mint back-off, banner skills, Yuanbao "active" adapter, Langfuse client	The profile's own `.env` / `config.yaml` / `<home>/cache`	Documented default — never the launch profile's cached value or its credentials
Session-search knobs (`sessions.cjk_fts`, `sessions.search_slow_ms`)	The profile's `config.yaml`	Documented default — never the default profile's bridged value
Platform proxies (`TELEGRAM_PROXY`, `DISCORD_PROXY`, `HTTPS_PROXY`, …)	The profile's own `.env`	Direct connection — never the default profile's proxy
MCP discovery in the Desktop/dashboard backend	Once per served profile home	A profile selected after another has already built an agent still discovers its own `mcp_servers`
Dashboard actions (`hermes -p <name> …` spawned by the Desktop/dashboard)	A scrubbed child env pinned to that profile's `HERMES_HOME`	The child loads its own `.env`; the dashboard profile's tokens and ports are not inherited
Cron `.env` tuning (`HERMES_CRON_TIMEOUT`, `HERMES_MODEL` fallback, `HERMES_CRON_MAX_PARALLEL`, prefill file), worker / Bot Chat child env	The profile's own `.env`; children never inherit the default profile's `.env` settings or bridged `TERMINAL_*` policy	Cron defaults / model refusal, exactly as a standalone `hermes -p <name> gateway run`
Kanban workers and notifications for a profile's tasks	The assignee's `.env` + `config.yaml` (toolset pin, terminal backend, media policy, display language)	—
`/loop` ticks, `background_process_notifications` gate, `notice_delivery`, background-process checkpoint recovery	The owning profile's `state.db` / `config.yaml` / `processes.json`	—

What is shared by design: the process, its PID/lock and gateway_state.json (default home), the one HTTP listener, and the profile_routes table (declared on the default profile).

Which profiles are served

gateway.multiplex_profiles: true serves the default profile plus every live named profile under profiles/ — there is no per-profile opt-out list. (The former gateway.multiplex_profile_allowlist key is retired; a config migration removes it from config.yaml, and a profile you do not want served is archived or deleted instead — hermes profile delete <name>, or move the directory out of profiles/.) Deleted profiles leave a tombstone and are never enumerated; a profile whose directory is gone is never recreated by a served turn, the cron ticker or log routing.

The served set controls /p/<profile>/ API and webhook prefixes, runtime status, profile-route eligibility, and which profiles the in-process cron scheduler ticks (the Desktop backend's ticker enumerates the same set and stands down for any profile a running multiplexer or its own gateway already serves). A multiplexer started as hermes -p <name> gateway run always ticks its own profile's cron store as well.

The served set is live. A profile created while the multiplexer is running (hermes profile create, the dashboard, Desktop or the TUI) is served at once: the creator pings the multiplexer over its control socket, and the multiplexer also rescans profiles/ every 30 seconds as a safety net. The new profile's adapters are built the moment its config.yaml/.env carries a bot token (creators usually create first, then add the token), served_profiles in the default profile's gateway_state.json is updated, and hermes -p <name> gateway status reports it as served — no restart, and the other profiles' adapters and in-flight turns are untouched. Deleting a profile stops and unroutes its adapters the same way. The one-credential-one-poller rule still applies: a hot-added profile that reuses another profile's token is parked with a duplicate_credential error, never started as a second poller.

Routing shared-bot chats to profiles (`profile_routes`)

Multiplexing selects a profile per credential (each profile's own bot token) or per URL prefix (/p/<profile>/ for HTTP platforms). When several communities share one bot token — for example one Discord bot serving many guilds — you can additionally route specific guilds/channels/threads to different profiles with gateway.profile_routes:

yaml

gateway:
  multiplex_profiles: true
  profile_routes:
    # An entire Discord server → one profile
    - name: acme-server
      platform: discord
      guild_id: "1234567890"
      profile: acme

    # One channel in that server → a different profile
    - name: acme-support
      platform: discord
      guild_id: "1234567890"
      chat_id: "9876543210"
      profile: acme-support

    # A Telegram group (no guild concept — chat_id only)
    - name: tg-group
      platform: telegram
      chat_id: "-1001234567890"
      profile: tg-profile

    # A WhatsApp DM — write the phone number; JID and LID forms also match
    - name: owner-whatsapp
      platform: whatsapp
      chat_id: "15551234567"
      profile: owner

Routes are matched most-specific-first (thread_id > chat_id > guild_id), all declared fields must hold (AND), and a route keyed on a channel also matches threads/forum posts whose parent is that channel. Messages that match no route stay on the default/active profile. The routed profile gets the full per-profile isolation described above (config, skills, memory, credentials, session namespace). Routing works on every platform adapter, not just Discord.

A route applies only to messages received by the default profile's bot unless it names another bot with bot_profile: <profile>. Telegram DMs use the same chat_id for every bot (the user's id), so without this a chat_id route meant for the shared bot would also capture that user's DMs with a secondary profile's dedicated bot. Messages arriving at a secondary profile's own bot stay in that profile:

yaml

    # Pin one user's DM with team_b's OWN bot to a third profile
    - name: teamb-owner-dm
      platform: telegram
      bot_profile: team_b
      chat_id: "72719239"
      profile: ops-for-team-b

Authorization for a routed message is always decided by the receiving bot's profile (its token and allowlist), including follow-ups sent while the agent is busy and mid-turn checks such as /topic or /stop; the routed profile itself needs no copy of the allowlist. A routed profile without a bot of its own also receives background notifications (process completions, heartbeats, async delegation results) through the shared bot after a gateway restart.

On WhatsApp and WhatsApp Cloud, a chat_id route matches across user-identity forms: a bare phone number (15551234567), a JID (15551234567@s.whatsapp.net), and a LID (…@lid) all refer to the same person once the bridge has paired them (the same canonicalization session keys and adapter allowlists already use). You can put the phone number in profile_routes and inbound DMs still match whether WhatsApp delivers a JID or a LID. Without a LID mapping yet, the number form still matches a JID (the suffix is stripped) but cannot resolve an unknown LID — that inbound falls through to the default profile until the mapping appears. Group chats (…@g.us) are not sender identities and still match exactly. Telegram numeric ids are unchanged.

profile_routes requires gateway.multiplex_profiles: true; with multiplexing off the routes are ignored. If an explicit route matches but its target profile is not installed (or was deleted), the gateway rejects that ingress and logs the route and target. It does not run the default profile. Traffic that matches no route keeps the historical default-profile behavior.

Cron jobs owned by a routed profile deliver through the shared bot too, but only to targets an enabled route with a chat_id/thread_id maps to that profile (a guild_id + chat_id route qualifies its channel) — a routed profile's job targeting an unrouted chat (or a chat routed to another profile) is never sent through the shared bot. Guild-only routes do not qualify a cron target; add a chat_id route for the delivery channel. The routed profile does not need its own platforms.<platform> block for this: the shared bot's authorization comes from the route, not from the satellite's config.

Start, stop, or restart all gateways at once

The CLI ships with single-profile lifecycle commands. To act across every profile, wrap them in a shell loop. Put the snippet below in ~/.local/bin/hermes-gateways and chmod +x it:

#!/bin/sh
set -eu

# Add or remove profile names here as you create / delete profiles.
profiles="default coder personal-bot research"

usage() {
  echo "Usage: hermes-gateways {start|stop|restart|status|list}"
}

run_for_profile() {
  profile="$1"
  action="$2"
  if [ "$profile" = "default" ]; then
    hermes gateway "$action"
  else
    hermes -p "$profile" gateway "$action"
  fi
}

action="${1:-}"
case "$action" in
  start|stop|restart|status)
    for profile in $profiles; do
      echo "==> $action $profile"
      run_for_profile "$profile" "$action"
    done
    ;;
  list)
    hermes gateway list
    ;;
  *)
    usage
    exit 2
    ;;
esac

Then:

bash

hermes-gateways start      # start every configured profile
hermes-gateways stop       # stop every configured profile
hermes-gateways restart    # restart all
hermes-gateways status     # status across all
hermes-gateways list       # delegates to `hermes gateway list`

TIP

The default profile is targeted with hermes gateway <action> (no -p), not hermes -p default gateway <action>. The wrapper above handles both forms.

Manage one profile

The shortcut commands every profile installs:

bash

coder gateway run        # foreground (Ctrl-C to stop)
coder gateway start      # start the managed service
coder gateway stop       # stop the managed service
coder gateway restart    # restart
coder gateway status     # status
coder gateway install    # create the LaunchAgent / systemd unit
coder gateway uninstall  # remove the service file

These are equivalent to hermes -p coder gateway <action> — useful if a profile alias is not on PATH or if you target profiles dynamically from a script.

Service files

Each profile installs its own service with a unique name, so installations never clash:

Platform	Path
macOS	`~/Library/LaunchAgents/ai.hermes.gateway-<profile>.plist`
Linux	`~/.config/systemd/user/hermes-gateway-<profile>.service`

The default profile keeps the historical names: ai.hermes.gateway.plist / hermes-gateway.service.

Viewing logs

Each profile writes to its own log files:

bash

# Default profile
tail -f ~/.hermes/logs/gateway.log
tail -f ~/.hermes/logs/gateway.error.log

# Named profile
tail -f ~/.hermes/profiles/&lt;name>/logs/gateway.log
tail -f ~/.hermes/profiles/&lt;name>/logs/gateway.error.log

Stream every profile's log simultaneously:

bash

tail -f ~/.hermes/logs/gateway.log ~/.hermes/profiles/*/logs/gateway.log

The CLI also has a structured log viewer:

bash

hermes logs -f                  # follow default profile
hermes -p coder logs -f         # follow one profile
hermes logs --help              # filters, levels, JSON output

Identify what's actually running

bash

hermes profile list             # profiles + model + gateway state
hermes-gateways status          # full status across every profile
launchctl list | grep hermes    # macOS — PIDs and labels
systemctl --user list-units 'hermes-gateway-*'   # Linux — units

Editing configuration

Every profile keeps its config inside its own directory:

~/.hermes/profiles/&lt;name>/
├── .env              # API keys, bot tokens (chmod 600)
├── config.yaml       # model, provider, toolsets, gateway settings
└── SOUL.md           # personality / system prompt

The default profile uses ~/.hermes/ directly with the same three files.

Edit them with any editor or via the CLI:

bash

hermes config set model.model anthropic/claude-sonnet-4    # default profile
coder config set model.model openai/gpt-5                  # named profile

After editing .env or config.yaml, restart the affected gateway:

bash

coder gateway restart
# or, for everything:
hermes-gateways restart

Keeping the host awake

The gateway process can run all day, but the operating system will still try to sleep when idle. Two patterns:

macOS — `caffeinate`

caffeinate is built into macOS and prevents sleep while it runs. No install.

bash

caffeinate -dis                    # block display, idle, and system sleep
caffeinate -dis -t 28800           # same, auto-exit after 8 hours
caffeinate -i -w $(cat ~/.hermes/gateway.pid) &   # awake while default gateway runs

# Persistent: run in background and forget
nohup caffeinate -dis >/dev/null 2>&1 &
disown

# Inspect / stop
pmset -g assertions | grep -iE 'caffeinate|prevent|user is active'
pkill caffeinate

Flag	Effect
`-d`	block display sleep
`-i`	block idle system sleep (default)
`-m`	block disk sleep
`-s`	block system sleep (AC-powered Macs only)
`-u`	simulate user activity (prevents screen lock)
`-t N`	auto-exit after `N` seconds
`-w P`	exit when PID `P` exits

Lid-close still sleeps the Mac

caffeinate cannot override the hardware-driven lid-close sleep on MacBooks. For lid-closed operation, change your Energy Saver / Battery preferences or use a third-party tool.

Linux — `systemd-inhibit` or `loginctl`

bash

# Inhibit suspend while a command runs
systemd-inhibit --what=idle:sleep --who=hermes --why="gateways running" \
  sleep infinity &

# Allow user services to keep running after logout (recommended)
sudo loginctl enable-linger "$USER"

After enabling lingering, your systemd user units (including hermes-gateway-<profile>.service) continue running across SSH disconnects and reboots.

Token-conflict safety

Each profile must use unique bot tokens for each platform. If two profiles share a Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, or Signal token, the second gateway refuses to start with an error naming the conflicting profile. Under multiplexing the same rule parks only the duplicate profile's adapter and the shared gateway keeps running.

To audit:

bash

grep -H 'TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN\|DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN' \
     ~/.hermes/.env ~/.hermes/profiles/*/.env

Migrating from per-profile gateways

If your profiles each run their own gateway today (one systemd unit or launchd agent per profile), you can fold them into a single multiplexed default gateway with one command — and roll back with another. Standalone per-profile gateways remain fully supported; this is an optional migration, not a removal.

bash

hermes gateway migrate --multiplex --dry-run   # print the plan and any blockers; changes nothing
hermes gateway migrate --multiplex             # apply (asks for confirmation on a TTY; -y skips)
hermes gateway migrate --standalone            # roll back to per-profile gateways

What `hermes update` does

After a successful update, when the install has two or more profiles, at least one secondary profile runs its own gateway (a live process or an installed service) and gateway.multiplex_profiles is off, hermes update runs the same preflight:

Nothing blocks it → the migration runs automatically (the same code path as hermes gateway migrate --multiplex --yes) and prints what it did. This is deterministic and never prompts, so it also runs on headless/cron updates.
Something blocks it → a warning block lists each blocker with its exact fix and the one-liner to run later. Nothing is changed.

Single-profile installs are never migrated (there is nothing to gain), and an install that is already multiplexing is left alone. hermes update also does nothing when no secondary profile runs its own gateway — it never flips modes on an install where nothing was running.

The explicit command is different: hermes gateway migrate --multiplex with two or more profiles and no standalone secondary gateway still applies the one remaining step — it sets gateway.multiplex_profiles: true, (re)starts the default gateway and writes the same rollback manifest (with an empty secondaries list), so --standalone undoes it. You asked for multiplex; you get multiplex.

Clones do not carry channels

hermes profile create --clone leaves the source's bot tokens and allowlists behind (see Profiles → messaging channels are never cloned), so a fleet of clones no longer trips the duplicate-credential blocker below. Older clones that still carry them are flagged by hermes profile list.

What the migration does

Stops each secondary profile's standalone gateway and uninstalls its service (systemd user/system unit or launchd agent). What was removed is recorded in ~/.hermes/gateway_migration.json for rollback.
Sets gateway.multiplex_profiles: true in the default profile's config.yaml.
Restarts the default gateway — or installs and starts it on the same service manager the secondaries were using, so a systemd-managed fleet stays systemd-managed.
Waits for the default gateway to record served_profiles covering every profile, then prints a summary.

Blockers and fixes

Blocker	Why	Fix
Two profiles configure the same platform credential (e.g. the same `TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN`)	Under one process a bot token can only be polled once; the multiplexer would park the duplicate and that profile's bot would go silent	Remove the token from the second profile, or keep it in `default` and route that profile's chats with `profile_routes`
A secondary profile enables a port-binding platform that has no `/p/<profile>/` ingress on the default listener	The multiplexer skips that whole profile (see rule 2)	Disable the platform in that profile (`platforms.<name>.enabled: false`), or keep the profile on a standalone gateway with `hermes -p <name> gateway start --force`

The credential check reuses the gateway's own conflict detection, so its verdict matches what the multiplexer does at startup. Which port-binding platforms have a /p/<profile>/ ingress is read from the adapters themselves (each declares serves_profile_prefix), so the preflight stays correct as new HTTP-inbound adapters gain the prefix.

What changes for inbound-port profiles

A secondary profile that used api_server or webhook on its own port is not blocked — but its URL changes. The preflight prints the exact new URL, for example:

Profile 'coder': api_server moves onto the default listener at
 (its key/secret is unchanged; update
clients that call the old per-profile port).

The profile's own API_SERVER_KEY / webhook secret keeps authenticating the prefixed URL; nothing else about the key changes.

Profiles created after the migration

A profile created while the multiplexer runs is served without a restart (see above). hermes profile create confirms this when the live multiplexer picked the profile up; it prints the hermes gateway restart reminder only when it could not reach the multiplexer (for example, a gateway started from an older build).

Rollback

bash

hermes gateway migrate --standalone

reads gateway_migration.json, sets gateway.multiplex_profiles back to its previous value, restarts the default gateway, and reinstalls/starts every recorded per-profile service. The manifest is removed once everything is back. If no manifest exists (you enabled multiplexing by hand), leave multiplex mode with hermes config set gateway.multiplex_profiles false && hermes gateway restart and reinstall the per-profile services you want.

Not covered automatically: s6-supervised containers (set the flag on the default profile and restart the container) and Windows Scheduled Tasks (set the flag, stop the per-profile tasks, hermes gateway restart). The dashboard's System page offers the same migration as a button when the preflight finds an eligible install.

Updating the code

hermes update pulls the latest code once and syncs new bundled skills into every profile:

bash

hermes update
hermes-gateways restart

Running gateways are restarted by the update itself; on an install that still runs one gateway per profile, the update then offers the migration to a single multiplexed gateway — automatically when nothing blocks it, otherwise as a warning with the fixes.

User-modified skills are never overwritten.

Troubleshooting

"Could not find service in domain for user gui: 501"

You ran hermes gateway start after a previous hermes gateway stop. The CLI's stop does a full launchctl unload, which removes the service from launchd's registry. The CLI catches this specific error on start and automatically re-loads the plist (↻ launchd job was unloaded; reloading service definition). The service starts normally. Nothing to fix.

Stale PID after a crash

If a profile's gateway shows not running but a process is still alive:

bash

ps -ef | grep "hermes_cli.*-p &lt;profile>"
cat ~/.hermes/profiles/&lt;profile>/gateway.pid
kill -TERM &lt;pid>          # graceful
kill -KILL &lt;pid>          # if that fails after a few seconds
&lt;profile> gateway start

Forcing a hard reset of one service

bash

# macOS
launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ai.hermes.gateway-&lt;profile>.plist
launchctl load   ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ai.hermes.gateway-&lt;profile>.plist

# Linux
systemctl --user restart hermes-gateway-&lt;profile>.service

Health check

bash

hermes doctor                  # default profile
hermes -p &lt;profile> doctor     # one profile

Open Webui

Bundled

Apple

Autonomous Ai Agents

Creative

Devops

Email

Github

Media

Mlops

Note Taking

Productivity

Research

Smart Home

Social Media

Software Development

Web

Optional

Autonomous Ai Agents

Blockchain

Communication

Creative

Data Science

Devops

Dogfood

Email

Finance

Gaming

Health

Mcp

Migration

Mlops

Payments

Productivity

Research

Security

Smart Home

Social Media

Software Development

Web Development

Yuanbao

Files

Features

Messaging

Skills

Bundled

Optional

Running Many Gateways at Once ​

When to use this ​

Quick start ​

Alternative: one gateway for all profiles (multiplexing) ​

When to prefer multiplexing ​

How to opt in ​

What changes when multiplexing is on ​

1. Secondary profiles must not start their own gateway ​

2. HTTP-inbound platforms are reached via a /p/&lt;profile>/ URL prefix ​

Inbound-port platforms under the multiplexer ​

3. Per-credential platforms still need their own token per profile ​

4. Session keys are namespaced by profile ​

5. One PID/lock and one status surface ​

What does not change ​

What is isolated per profile ​

Which profiles are served ​

Routing shared-bot chats to profiles (profile_routes) ​

Start, stop, or restart all gateways at once ​

Manage one profile ​

Service files ​

Viewing logs ​

Identify what's actually running ​

Editing configuration ​

Keeping the host awake ​

macOS — caffeinate ​

Linux — systemd-inhibit or loginctl ​

Token-conflict safety ​

Migrating from per-profile gateways ​

What hermes update does ​

What the migration does ​

Blockers and fixes ​

What changes for inbound-port profiles ​

Profiles created after the migration ​

Running Many Gateways at Once

When to use this

Quick start

Alternative: one gateway for all profiles (multiplexing)

When to prefer multiplexing

How to opt in

What changes when multiplexing is on

1. Secondary profiles must not start their own gateway

2. HTTP-inbound platforms are reached via a `/p/<profile>/` URL prefix

Inbound-port platforms under the multiplexer

3. Per-credential platforms still need their own token per profile

4. Session keys are namespaced by profile

5. One PID/lock and one status surface

What does not change

What is isolated per profile

Which profiles are served

Routing shared-bot chats to profiles (`profile_routes`)

Start, stop, or restart all gateways at once

Manage one profile

Service files

Viewing logs

Identify what's actually running

Editing configuration

Keeping the host awake

macOS — `caffeinate`

Linux — `systemd-inhibit` or `loginctl`

Token-conflict safety

Migrating from per-profile gateways

What `hermes update` does

What the migration does

Blockers and fixes

What changes for inbound-port profiles

Profiles created after the migration

Rollback

Updating the code

Troubleshooting

"Could not find service in domain for user gui: 501"

Stale PID after a crash

Forcing a hard reset of one service

Health check