Create and Verify a Custom Hermes CLI Skin

A Hermes skin changes presentation, not behavior. It can restyle colors, labels, spinners, prompt symbols, tool prefixes, and ASCII art while leaving the model, memory, tools, and personality untouched.

Operating checklist

Keep personality and visual branding separate.
Override only fields that differ from the default.
Use sufficient contrast for all semantic states.
Test CLI and TUI surfaces.
Keep spinner verbs short.
Preview Rich-markup banner art.
Retain a minimal fallback skin.

How the workflow works

Custom YAML skins live under the active profile skin directory and inherit missing values from the default theme. Activate one with /skin <name> or set display.skin in configuration. Built-in monochrome, slate, daylight, and warm-light themes are useful accessibility and recording baselines; more expressive skins demonstrate branding and spinner overrides.

Common pitfalls

Expecting a skin to change conversational tone.
Copying every key and drifting from future defaults.
Designing for only one terminal background.
Using labels that wrap in narrow terminals.
Publishing malformed Rich markup.

Verification steps

Confirm the skin appears under /skin.
Inspect banner, prompt, tools, menus, and status surfaces.
Trigger controlled success, warning, approval, and error states.
Resize to a narrow terminal.
Restart and confirm persistence.
Switch back to default to prove rollback.

Use the official Hermes documentation for the current source of truth.