Run Hermes Agent — on your Pro/Max plan or a free gift.

Pick your browser:

iOS and Android wallets exist but can't host Hermes — the hermes CLI and the Byoky Bridge need a desktop OS. (The mobile wallets are for gift senders or browsing the token pool on the go.)

# Hermes — clones into ~/.hermes, sets up a uv venv, registers `hermes` on PATH.
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash -s -- --skip-setup

# Byoky bridge
npm install -g @byoky/bridge
byoky-bridge install

byoky-bridge install writes a native messaging host manifest that whitelists the Byoky extension. Restart your browser once so Chrome picks up the manifest. You only ever do this once per machine.

Native Windows is not supported by Hermes — install WSL2 and run the command above. macOS, Linux, and Android via Termux are supported.

byoky-bridge connect

A browser tab opens on http://127.0.0.1:<ephemeral>. Click Connect wallet, approve the session in the Byoky popup, and the tab reports success. The bridge is now listening on 127.0.0.1:19280 and stays up as long as your browser is running. Re-run the command after a browser restart.

Verify it:

curl http://127.0.0.1:19280/health
# → {"status":"ok","providers":["anthropic",...]}

If anthropic is missing, the wallet doesn't have an Anthropic credential loaded yet — go back to step 2.

byoky-bridge hermes-setup

That writes a byoky-anthropic entry into custom_providers with api_mode: anthropic_messages, flips model.provider to byoky-anthropic, and backs up the original to config.yaml.bak. Re-running is a no-op if the file is already configured.

Then run Hermes:

hermes chat -q "ping" -Q       # one-shot smoke test
hermes                          # interactive

# At the top of ~/.hermes/config.yaml:
model:
  default: claude-sonnet-4-6        # or claude-opus-4-7, claude-haiku-4-5
  provider: byoky-anthropic         # was: anthropic

# In the custom_providers list, add (or fix) the byoky entry.
# api_mode MUST be anthropic_messages — chat_completions yields 404 from the bridge.
custom_providers:
- name: byoky-anthropic
  base_url: http://127.0.0.1:19280/anthropic
  api_key: ''
  api_mode: anthropic_messages

On a successful first call, hermes status shows Provider: custom and Endpoint: http://127.0.0.1:19280/anthropic. Token usage shows up in the wallet's Sessions view in real time. If you're using a gifted credential, the gifter's budget ticks down and the session stops cleanly at zero.

Why not env vars? The Hermes built-in anthropic provider hits api.anthropic.com directly and doesn't read ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL.--provider anthropic, hermes model → Anthropic, and any leftover ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in ~/.hermes/.env all bypass byoky. Routing has to go through a custom_providers entry, which is what the edits above set up.

Coming from hermes claw migrate? The migrator already drops a byoky-anthropic entry in custom_providers, but with api_mode: chat_completions — which yields a 404 from the bridge. Change it to api_mode: anthropic_messages and you're done.

Pro tip: Hermes ships a 36KB system prompt (its “SOUL.md”). Byoky relocates it into a <system_context> block in the first user message so Anthropic's third-party detection still classifies the traffic as Claude Code. No tuning required.