@IBuzovskyi: HERMES AGENT v0.20.0 JUST DROPPED. THE HERALD RELEASE. IT SPEAKS, CITES SOURCES, PUSHES WEBHOOKS, AND TALKS TO OTHER AG…

HERMES AGENT v0.20.0 JUST DROPPED. THE HERALD RELEASE. IT SPEAKS, CITES SOURCES, PUSHES WEBHOOKS, AND TALKS TO OTHER AGENTS. released today, August 3, 2026. THE HEADLINE FEATURES: CONVERSATIONAL VOICE WITH BARGE-IN: voice mode was: speak, wait for full reply, listen. now: Hermes speaks clause-by-clause as it streams. interrupt mid-sentence by talking. it stops, listens, and the model knows you cut in. works in CLI, desktop, and every gateway. talking to Hermes feels like a conversation now. GROUNDED CITATIONS WITH FACT-CHECKING: new grounded-citations skill. every claim backed by a verifiable source. quotes matched against actual page text (not hallucinated). fact-checking mode: hand it any document or claim. it tells you what checks out, what doesn't, and what couldn't be verified. OUTBOUND WEBHOOKS: Hermes pushes signed lifecycle events to any HTTP endpoint you register. session activity, turn completions, tool events. HMAC signatures for authenticity. wire Hermes into CI, dashboards, home automation. no polling loop. DESKTOP BECOMES A PLATFORM: artifacts: versioned cards with sandboxed live preview. plugin SDK with Kanban as founding plugin. global-hotkey quick-entry window (capture a thought into any session from anywhere). multiple GUI windows. A2A v1.0 (AGENT-TO-AGENT PROTOCOL): Hermes can discover, talk to, and be driven by other A2A-compatible agents. closes issue #514. one of the oldest open requests. heterogeneous multi-agent systems now have a standard wire protocol. CLI POWER COMMANDS: ! runs a shell command instantly. zero model turns. /init scans your project, generates AGENTS.md. /diff shows staged/all/session changes. /context breaks down what fills your context window. /focus gives reduced-output view. Ctrl+S stashes a half-written prompt. hermes import-agent migrates Claude Code or Codex CLI setups into Hermes in one command. MID-TURN REDIRECTS: type a correction while the agent works. the active turn redirects. work in flight preserved. original prompt kept. no /stop. no re-explain. course-correct mid-run. TOOLS THAT FIX THEMSELVES: truncated terminal output spills to a file the agent can read back. patch detects already-applied edits. write_file verifies content on disk. searches that match nothing probe for near-misses. common failures return actionable hints. default iteration limit: 90 → 500. long autonomous runs stopped hitting an artificial wall. COMPRESSION OVERHAUL: proactive tool-result pruning. per-turn micro-compaction (no giant pause). guaranteed N-user-message tail (recent conversation always survives). ghost-skill defense (pruned skills can never silently haunt a session). thresholds configurable per-model and in absolute tokens. SMART APPROVALS GROW UP: hermes approvals suggest mines your approval history into allowlist proposals. consecutive-denial circuit breaker stops a misbehaving loop cold. operators can customize the smart-approval policy. BUZZ AS NATIVE PLATFORM: Block's Nostr-based messenger ships as a bundled gateway platform. NIP-42 auth. native WebSocket. VOICE ON EVERY PLATFORM: send a voice note on WhatsApp, Feishu, DingTalk, LINE, QQ, or Weixin. transcribed and answered. auto-TTS replies delivered platform-aware. SPEED: hermes -w cold start: ~14s → ~1.8s. config reads: 54x faster (telemetry gate). prompt caching covers tool schemas on native Anthropic. desktop: streaming cost independent of transcript length. 60fps with five streaming tabs open. NEW MODELS: Gemini 3.1 Pro + 3.6 Flash. Claude Opus 5 on OpenRouter + Nous Portal. DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731. Vercel AI Gateway provider. THE NUMBERS: 3,650 commits. 1,400 merged PRs. 5,200 files changed. 559,000 insertions. 1,200 issues closed. 650+ contributors. 225K GitHub stars. 43.5K forks. hermes update