Native Windows: main.py omits hermes_home in load_hermes_dotenv → .env never loaded

[Aetran22]

Summary

On native Windows, a fresh install fails with No inference provider configured even when %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes\.env contains a valid ANTHROPIC_API_KEY (or any provider key). The .env file is never loaded because the installed hermes entrypoint resolves the Hermes home to the POSIX default ~/.hermes instead of the Windows-native %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes.

Root cause

The console-script entrypoint is hermes_cli.main:main. At import time hermes_cli/main.py loads the dotenv:

# hermes_cli/main.py:519
load_hermes_dotenv(project_env=PROJECT_ROOT / ".env")

hermes_home is not passed. In env_loader.load_hermes_dotenv:

home_path = Path(hermes_home or os.getenv("HERMES_HOME", Path.home() / ".hermes"))

With hermes_home=None and HERMES_HOME unset (the default), home_path becomes Path.home() / ".hermes" = C:\Users\<user>\.hermes — which does not exist on Windows. The real home (per hermes_constants.get_hermes_home() / _get_platform_default_hermes_home()) is %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes. So the user's .env is silently skipped.

hermes config show masks the bug: it displays the correct path via get_env_path() (which uses get_hermes_home()), so the "Secrets" line reads %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes\.env, but the actual dotenv load used the wrong directory. Result: every key shows (not set).

Notably main.py already imports the correct helper two lines above but doesn't use it:

# main.py:516
from hermes_cli.config import get_hermes_home

And the other entrypoint gets it right — cli.py:182:

load_hermes_dotenv(hermes_home=_hermes_home, project_env=_project_env)

Reproduce

1. Native Windows (no WSL), HERMES_HOME unset.
2. Install, then write a key to %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes\.env:
   ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
3. hermes config show → Anthropic (not set); hermes → No inference provider configured (error text even points at ~/.hermes/.env).

Workaround: set HERMES_HOME=%LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes as a user env var — but that shouldn't be required, since get_hermes_home() already knows the correct default.

Fix

Pass the resolved home, matching cli.py:

load_hermes_dotenv(hermes_home=get_hermes_home(), project_env=PROJECT_ROOT / ".env")

PR attached.

Environment: Windows 11, Hermes 0.18.0, local editable (uv pip install -e .), Python 3.13.