Installation Guide

Three ways to install the vault, from easiest to most manual.

Option A — Paste into Hermes (easiest)

If you already run a Hermes agent, open INSTALL_PROMPT.md in the repo and paste one of its three blocks straight into your Hermes chat:

Install-only prompt — clones the repo, runs the right installer for your OS, relays its questions to you
Cron-only prompt — sets up the hourly session-archiving cron job (vault must already exist)
Master prompt — does both in one paste

Hermes drives the whole thing; you just answer a couple of questions (where to put the vault, which embedding backend you want).

Linux / macOS:

git clone https://github.com/mistrysiddh/hermes-brain-template.git
cd hermes-brain-template
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

Windows (PowerShell):

git clone https://github.com/mistrysiddh/hermes-brain-template.git
cd hermes-brain-template
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\install.ps1

The installer will ask:

Question	What it does
Where should the vault live?	Copies the template there (default `~/Hermes Brain`)
Which embedding backend? (`ollama` / `python` / `skip`)	Sets up the optional trend-digest scripts
Record vault path as `HERMES_VAULT_PATH`?	Registers it with the Hermes CLI if found
Run `consolidate_memory.py` once now?	Sanity-checks the memory pipeline script

Follow SETUP.md in the repo step by step. Use this if you want to understand or customize every piece before committing to it.

Open the vault folder in Obsidian.
Enable the bundled community plugins: Dataview, Smart Connections, Local REST API, and brain-atlas (if present) — Settings → Community Plugins.
If you want live Hermes ↔ Obsidian sync via the REST API plugin, let it generate its own key on first enable, then store it with:
```
hermes config set env.OBSIDIAN_REST_API_KEY "<your-key>"
```
Never paste it into a vault note — vaults commonly sync via OneDrive/Dropbox/git.
Point your Hermes session-archiving cron job at <vault>/Daily/. Only run one archiving job per vault — concurrent writers race on Daily/manifest.jsonl.

See also: FAQ for common snags, Architecture for how the pieces fit together.