AI Grimoire · Step-by-step tutorial

The Broke Agent

Set up an autonomous AI assistant worthy of the paid high end, on your machine, for 0 dollars. No credit card. In 15 minutes.

Complete beginner level · Windows · Milton Thomas

In one sentence

We are going to install Hermes Agent (an open-source AI agent from Nous Research) on your PC, and hook it up to a 405-billion-parameter model, entirely free. The result: an assistant that reads the web, gathers links and works for you, for the price of a coffee you will not pay.

The week Google let go of the engineer who had built its own command-line tool, another piece of news went almost unnoticed: anyone, with a PC and a quarter of an hour, can now run an AI agent that rivals what these giants sell. The gap has closed. The weapons have fallen into everyone's hands.

This article is the how-to. No gratuitous jargon, no skipped step. If you know how to open a window and copy-paste, you know how to do it. We call it the broke agent: power without the bill.

First, what exactly is it?

Two building blocks, not to be confused:

The engine (the model): the brain. Here, Hermes 3 405B, an open model from Nous Research. "Open" means its weights are public, so services run it for free. The "405B" is 405 billion parameters: the top of what exists.
The agent (the body): what gives the brain hands. A chatbot answers. An agent acts: it searches the web, opens pages, reads your files, chains tasks on its own. We will use Hermes Agent, the open-source software (MIT licence) from the same team.

The chatbot/agent difference, in one image: a chatbot tells you how to hammer in a nail. An agent picks up the hammer.

What you need (the bare minimum)

A Windows PC (this tutorial is for Windows; it also works on Mac and Linux).
An OpenRouter account, free, to get a key. No credit card.
15 minutes.

That is all. The rest (Python, Git, and the technical tools), the installer lays down on its own. Here we go.

Step 1: the free key

Create an API key on OpenRouter

OpenRouter is a single gateway to more than 200 AI models, a handful of them free. We grab a key there:

Go to openrouter.ai and create an account (Google or email, 30 seconds).
Click your profile pill (the little circle with your initial or photo, top right), then Keys, then the Create Key button.
Give it a name (e.g. agent-fauche) and confirm. Your key appears (it starts with sk-or-...).

Do this right awayOpenRouter shows the key only once. Copy it immediately and paste it into a Notepad (Windows key, type Notepad, Enter) to keep it at hand. If you close the window without having copied it, it is lost: you will have to delete it on OpenRouter and click Create Key again to make another one. It is your password, do not show it to anyone.

How much is free?Without any deposit, OpenRouter's free tier caps at 50 requests per day (and 20 per minute) on the :free models. A single deposit of $10 raises that cap to 1000 requests/day for life (still 20/minute). We stay "broke": the $10 is not consumed by the free models, it just serves as a pass.

Step 2: the install

Install Hermes Agent in one command

Open PowerShell, the "black window" where you type commands: press the Windows key (the one with the Windows logo, bottom left of the keyboard), type PowerShell, then Enter.

Copy the line below, then in the black window right-click (or Ctrl+V) to paste it, and press Enter:

iex (irm https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.ps1)

Patience, this is normalThe install downloads Python, Node.js and the rest: it can take 5 to 15 minutes and scroll a huge amount of text (sometimes orange lines, that is normal). Do not close the window. If Windows shows a security warning (SmartScreen), that is expected for this kind of tool: allow it, do not turn off your antivirus.

You have succeeded when: the scrolling stops and you get back the line where you type (the cursor blinks again). Then close PowerShell and open a fresh window: that is what activates the hermes command.

Sound reflex (and source)The command comes from the official documentation: github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent. As a matter of principle, never run a script from the internet without being able to read it: you can open the install.ps1 URL in your browser to look at it first.

Read once: the keyboard menusIn the steps that follow, Hermes opens menus inside the black window. The mouse does nothing there: you move with the keyboard. Up/Down arrows to move through the list, Space bar to check/uncheck a line, Enter key to confirm. On a long list, you can often type a few letters to filter it. Keep this in mind: it is the only real trap in the tutorial.

Step 3: the connection

Launch the configuration assistant

In the fresh window, type:

hermes setup

The assistant asks you questions. At "model provider," choose OpenRouter (with the keyboard, see the box above). When it asks for the key, paste your key sk-or-... (right-click, or Ctrl+V). For the rest, you can leave everything at default (Enter).

If 'hermes is not recognised'If PowerShell replies "hermes is not recognised...", it means the shortcut is not active yet: close ALL PowerShell windows and open a fresh one. If it persists, restart the PC (that reloads the shortcut), or type hermes doctor for a diagnostic.

You have succeeded when: the assistant confirms that the configuration is saved.

Step 4: the free brain

Choose the 405-billion-parameter model

Type:

hermes model

A list opens (with the keyboard, see the box). It is long: type a few letters such as hermes-3-405b to filter it, then select the line:

nousresearch/hermes-3-llama-3.1-405b:free

and press Enter. The :free suffix is the key to being "broke": $0 in, $0 out, 131,000 tokens of context. A model that companies paid a fortune for not long ago, free in your console.

You have succeeded when: Hermes shows that the selected model is indeed the :free one.

Step 5: first contact

Talk to your agent

Simply type:

hermes

You are in the chat. Say hello, ask it to summarise a topic, test it.

You have succeeded when: the agent answers you.

Leaving and coming backTo quit the conversation: Ctrl+C (or simply close the window). You drop back into PowerShell. To talk to your agent again later, just type hermes again: it has a persistent memory and remembers your exchanges.

Step 6: reap the links

Put it to work: gathering and monitoring

Where the agent goes beyond the mere chatbot: it has tools. Turn them on:

hermes tools

A menu appears in the window. Remember: keyboard. Move with the arrows, and press Space to check web search and browser automation (a cross or a tick appears), then Enter to confirm.

Then, in hermes, give it a real brief, for example:

Find the 10 best articles published this week about
open-source AI agents. Give me for each: the title,
the direct link, and a one-sentence summary. Rank them
from most to least relevant.

It will search, open, read, sort, and hand you a clean list of links. That is "reaping the links": delegating tedious monitoring to an employee who never sleeps and bills nothing.

You have succeeded when: it hands you a list of links with their summaries.

The real price of "free" (read this, really)

Nothing is free. Here, you do not pay in money, you pay another way. Three truths to know before getting carried away:

Your data feeds the machineFree models generally train on what you send them. Never put client data, secrets, passwords or confidential information into a broke agent. For anything sensitive: a paid model that commits to not training, or a local one.

The rate limitsFree has a ceiling. On OpenRouter: 20 requests per minute, 50 per day with no credit (1000/day after the $10 deposit), and failed requests count toward the quota. For personal use or monitoring, that is plenty. For heavy use, it is the wall. The workaround is just below.

405B is not Claude OpusHermes 3 405B is excellent and free, but on the hardest reasoning, the paid high-end models keep an edge. For 90 percent of tasks, you will not see the difference. For the remaining 10 percent, you will know it.

The "broke stack": stacking gateways so you never go down

A single free provider is a single point of failure. The real trick is to stack several of them (that is a "stack") and switch when one dries up:

Service	What you get (free)	Card?
OpenRouter	Hermes 3 405B and other `:free` models. 50 requests/day (1000/day after a single $10 deposit)	No
Google AI Studio	Gemini Flash. Per-model quotas, read in AI Studio (on the order of ~250/day for 2.5 Flash, ~1000/day for 2.5 Flash-Lite)	No
Mistral	"Free mode" tier (on by default), all models, throttled rate. Exact quotas visible in the console	No

In hermes model, you switch provider in two seconds. One fails? You switch to the other. That is being broke and unkillable. (The figures of the free tiers change often: check the official page of each service at the moment you sign up.)

Security, in two rules

An agent has real powersHermes Agent can read files and run commands. Keep manual validation on (the agent asks before acting) while you are starting out. And never expose its interface on the internet: it stays on your machine. An agent open to the public is a doorway into your home.

The key is a secretYour sk-or-... key = your account. Never paste it into a message, a public repository, or a screenshot. If it leaks, revoke it on OpenRouter and create a new one.

There. You have an agent.

Fifteen minutes, zero dollars, and you have an autonomous assistant that would have seemed like science fiction two years ago. The lesson is not technical, it is political: while the empires lay off their architects, their tools spread and become your weapon. Power decentralises. Today's broke has what yesterday's rich could not afford.

It remains to be seen what you will do with it. That, no model will decide in your place.

Sources and links (verified at publication) : Hermes Agent, github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent (MIT) · Free model, Hermes 3 405B :free on OpenRouter · Nous Research, nousresearch.com.

Commands and free limits change fast: in case of any discrepancy, the official documentation prevails.