Task Machine vs Hermes Agent
Hermes Agent combines a free, self-hosted agent with memory and a profile-based task board. Task Machine organizes people and agents around Tasks, Goals and an Inbox for decisions.
Visit Hermes Agent Switching from Hermes Agent? Read the migration guideTask Machine and Hermes Agent, point by point
Built from each company's public pages. Every answer links to its source and shows when we last checked it. The oldest check on this page was November 13, 2026.
| What you compare | Task Machine | Hermes Agent |
|---|---|---|
| Goals |
Task Machine
Yes
Give a Goal an agent lead and link Metrics, such as weekly signups or open pipeline value. The lead sees each Metric's latest value and trend, reviews the Goal on its own when a number or the linked work changes and on a schedule, and proposes what is missing for you to approve. |
Hermes Agent
Partly
Persistent goals keep an agent working toward an objective, with a judge and optional completion tests. Its docs describe no linked metric tracking against an ongoing business goal. |
| Leads |
Task Machine
Yes
Goals, Projects and Teams each have a lead, a person or an agent. A Goal lead checks that the work can still reach the outcome. A Project lead reviews its Tasks against the Goals that direct it and asks you to settle conflicts between them. A Team lead triages the queue. Every gap becomes a proposal you approve. |
Hermes Agent
Yes
You can name an orchestrator profile to own a decomposed project's root task, assign child tasks to specialists, judge completion and add more work when needed. |
| Tasks |
Task Machine
Yes
Every job is a Task that a person or an agent owns. The Task keeps its plan, discussion, decisions, runs and history together, so you can steer one job in detail without reading a chat log, and people and agents hand work to each other on the same record. |
Hermes Agent
Partly
Kanban cards keep an assigned agent profile, comments, dependencies and attempt history. People can comment and manage cards, but the documented assignee is a profile name rather than a person or an agent. |
| Recurring work |
Task Machine
Yes
Start a Task or Workflow once, on a schedule in your timezone, or when a service event arrives, such as a paid invoice or a pull request review. A recurring job keeps one stable root Task and gives each occurrence its own status and history, so repeated work does not flood your board. |
Hermes Agent
Yes
Cron jobs run once or recur on a schedule, and webhook events can fire the same jobs immediately. Each job can carry its own instructions, skills and delivery settings. |
| Workflows |
Task Machine
Yes
A Workflow repeats your steps in the same order every time, with branches, human questions and approvals, and verifier checks that judge each result against its requirements and send weak work back with feedback. Every run keeps a step-by-step history you can read afterwards. |
Hermes Agent
Partly
Kanban dependency chains coordinate roles such as scout, editor and writer. They provide ordered handoffs, but the kernel does not execute workflow templates, whose routing fields are reserved for a future version. |
| Autonomy |
Task Machine
Yes
Consequential decisions land in your Inbox with their context. You set what each agent may do on its own: every action is either Ask first or Automatic, per agent, and you can change that whenever the work or the stakes change. |
Hermes Agent
Yes
You configure shell approval modes, permanent allowlists and deny rules. Dangerous-command requests appear in the terminal or messaging chat, where you can approve or deny them. |
| Learned autonomy |
Task Machine
Yes
Task Machine studies the approvals and corrections you already make. When an agent does well it proposes giving it more freedom, and when it needs closer supervision it proposes tighter review, each with the evidence. A short lucky streak is not enough, and nothing changes until you accept. |
Hermes Agent
Yes
The approvals suggest command mines executed, approved commands into ranked allowlist proposals. You choose which entries to apply, and destructive command classes are excluded. |
| Memory |
Task Machine
Yes
Agents keep lessons from your corrections, such as an accepted example or a mistake to avoid, and carry the relevant notes into later work. Memory is kept per agent, project, goal, team and workspace, and you can read, correct and restore any note. |
Hermes Agent
Yes
Persistent notes and user preferences carry into later sessions. You can inspect, edit or delete learned memory through the journey commands or the desktop panel. |
| Planning |
Task Machine
Yes
Plan in Chat with your agents, and the plan becomes Tasks or Library documents instead of staying in a chat log. Before an agent starts, you review its plan and the acceptance criteria its work will be judged against. |
Hermes Agent
Yes
From chat, Kanban can expand a rough idea into a specification or dependency-linked tasks. You can disable automatic child promotion so the generated tasks wait for manual review before execution. |
| Intake |
Task Machine
Yes
Send work in over HTTP with a project token. It lands in the project as a Task, or in your Inbox as a proposal first. A team lead agent triages it to the right owner and asks you only when the decision is yours. |
Hermes Agent
Yes
Signed webhooks turn outside events into agent prompts. A route can target a named profile when profile multiplexing is enabled, and filter which events start work. |
| Connectors |
Task Machine
Yes
Install services from a catalog as MCP servers, APIs or command-line tools, or add your own custom Connector for any of the three. Events Connectors receive webhooks from a service, such as a paid invoice, and start Workflows or wake a waiting Task. |
Hermes Agent
Yes
A curated Model Context Protocol catalog and custom local or remote servers connect external tools. HTTP webhook routes accept signed service events and can post responses back through integrations such as GitHub. |
| Models |
Task Machine
Yes
Auto is the default. For each stage of the work it chooses a model from the task, current model capabilities, pricing and your applicable budgets, and you can fix a specific model on an agent when you want to. |
Hermes Agent
Partly
You choose the main model and can override auxiliary tasks. Provider routing chooses a backend for a selected model, rather than selecting a model from each task's needs. |
| Cloud or your own computer |
Task Machine
Yes
Run agents in Managed Cloud with nothing to install, or connect a Local Worker, a computer you control, for local files, tools and accounts. You choose where each agent runs. |
Hermes Agent
Yes
Run the free agent locally through its desktop or terminal interfaces, or choose the optional Hermes Cloud service for a hosted instance with a persistent workspace. |
| Your own subscription |
Task Machine
Yes
Sign in to your ChatGPT (Codex), Claude or GitHub Copilot subscription on a Local Worker, and the agents there use it instead of Task Machine's models. |
Hermes Agent
Yes
Hermes accepts your provider API keys and a ChatGPT account login. Its Claude account path requires Max plus purchased extra-usage credits, not the included Max allowance. |
| Pricing |
Task Machine
Yes
Usage based. From $29 a month before tax, the whole payment becomes usage that your workspace shares across people and agents, with no base fee and no trial. Larger monthly amounts lower the AI and Cloud rates. |
Hermes Agent
Yes
The MIT agent is free. Portal lists Plus $20/month, Super $100/month and Ultra $200/month, with credit top-ups. Cloud's FAQ separately meters compute and storage, excluding inference and tools, without explaining how that relates to included plan hosting. |
| Correctness |
Task Machine
Yes
Every Task carries acceptance requirements, and each one gets a Pass, Fail or Uncertain check against the delivered work before a person reviews it. Workflow steps can add a verifier check that sends failed work back with feedback. You review the plan first, so the criteria exist before work starts. |
Hermes Agent
Yes
Goal completion contracts define verification criteria, and shell quality gates must pass before a goal completes. Kanban review also maps acceptance criteria to evidence and can return work for correction. |
For software work
| What you compare | Task Machine | Hermes Agent |
|---|---|---|
| Code review rules |
Task Machine
Yes
Internal code review checks completed changes against the enabled rules of your repository. Rule discovery reads the repository and proposes rules, each screened against violating and valid examples first, and Task Machine suggests turning off a rule that agents keep dismissing. |
Hermes Agent
Yes
The pull-request review guide uses reusable review guidelines and remembered team conventions, such as required type annotations and database access rules, to check later diffs. |
| Adversarial review |
Task Machine
Yes
When an approved plan has high sensitivity or a Critical review level, the change also gets an adversarial review. Two independent reviewers examine the changed files together for defects such as a broken caller or a duplicate charge on retry. Findings keep their reproduction steps, and a skipped or failed review never counts as a pass. |
Hermes Agent
Yes
A bundled pre-commit skill delegates security and logic review to a separate, diff-only reviewer in interactive sessions. Kanban's review skill independently verifies handoffs and keeps the reviewer from editing the implementation. |
| Risk rating |
Task Machine
Yes
Before final review, Merge risk rates the exact revision Low, Moderate or High, with notes on alignment, impact, verification, rollback cost and error detection, plus file references. It informs your decision and never merges for you. |
Hermes Agent
Not published
Its docs describe no change-level risk rating before merge. Optional residual-risk notes on Kanban handoffs and severity labels for individual review findings do not establish such a rating. |
| Pull requests |
Task Machine
Yes
Agents deliver against the exact reported revision, address review feedback and update the branch under your repository rules. Task Machine records its own approval of the exact commit before an agent may merge. |
Hermes Agent
Partly
Agents can open pull requests through the GitHub CLI, and the bundled GitHub skill requires reading PR comments. The cited docs do not establish a review-feedback revision cycle. |
A fact we cannot find or cannot check is left out, and prices can change after the date shown. Task Machine publishes this comparison and is an interested party. Hermes Agent is named only to identify it, and there is no relationship between the two companies. Has something changed? Tell us.
Who each one suits
Hermes Agent suits you if you want a free, MIT-licensed agent you can run yourself, with persistent memory and access through desktop, terminal or messaging apps. Hermes Agent by Nous Research also has a Kanban board for coordinating named agent profiles.
Task Machine suits you if you want people and agents to own the same kind of Task, connect work to Goals with Metrics, and review consequential decisions in an Inbox.
You may stay with Hermes Agent if its profile-based board, scheduled jobs and editable memory already fit your work. Its approval-history command proposes reusable shell permissions, and its completion gates can check test results before a goal finishes.
Coordinate work through cards or shared Tasks
Hermes Agent's Kanban board retains dependencies, comments and attempt history. An orchestrator profile can split a project into specialist tasks and return to judge whether the whole job is complete. People manage and comment on cards, while the documented assignee is an agent profile.
Task Machine gives each Task a person or agent owner, with its plan, discussion, decisions and run history together. A Goal can have an agent lead and linked Metrics, so the lead reviews an ongoing outcome as the numbers and work change.
Hermes Agent also publishes independent code-review skills and completion checks. Its dependency chains coordinate ordered handoffs, though workflow-template routing is not implemented in the documented kernel. Task Machine Workflows define repeatable steps with branches, human questions, approvals and verifier checks.
Choose where your agent runs
Hermes Agent offers local desktop and terminal interfaces alongside optional Cloud hosting. Its persistent notes can be inspected and corrected, and you can connect your own model-provider API keys. A Claude account connection specifically requires Max and purchased extra-usage credits.
Task Machine runs agents in Managed Cloud or on a Local Worker, a computer you control. Its Inbox collects consequential decisions with their context, while you choose what each agent must ask before doing.
What the prices cover
Hermes Agent's MIT-licensed core is free, with model providers and optional hosted services priced separately. Nous Portal lists Plus at $20 a month, Super at $100 a month and Ultra at $200 a month, with pay-as-you-go credit top-ups. The plan table includes one Cloud agent, but the Cloud FAQ separately describes daily compute and storage charges, with inference and tools charged separately. Those public pages do not explain how included hosting and metered charges fit together, so check the configuration's billing terms before buying.
Task Machine is usage based, from $29 a month before tax, with the whole payment becoming usage shared by your workspace and no base fee. You keep 100% of your revenue, Task Machine takes no cut, and never takes custody of your accounts.
Common questions
Can Hermes Agent coordinate several agents?
Yes. Its Kanban board assigns cards to named profiles, links dependencies and retains handoffs. An orchestrator can judge a project's completion and create follow-up work.
Can Hermes Agent suggest fewer approval prompts?
Yes. Its approvals suggest command proposes allowlist entries from past approved commands, and you choose which to apply. Task Machine also proposes permission changes from approval history, with your acceptance required before they take effect.
Can both check work before completion?
Yes. Hermes Agent offers goal verification contracts, shell quality gates and independent Kanban review. Task Machine checks delivered work against each Task's acceptance requirements and can add verifier checks to Workflow steps.
Is the free Hermes Agent the hosted service?
No. The agent core is free to run yourself, while model providers and optional hosted services have separate pricing. Hermes Cloud's public billing explanation meters instance usage and separates inference and tool charges.