Hermes Agent 0.23.1 raises the plugin catalog size cap
TL;DR
Nous Research released Hermes Agent v0.23.1 on November 9, 2026. The plugin catalog had grown past the 2 MiB cap clients accept, so installs were silently using the catalog shipped with the app. This release raises the cap to 16 MiB. GitHub published the tag at 01:42 UTC on November 10.
- Status
- Live
- Released
- Plans
- Hermes Agent
- Source
- —
What changed
The v0.23.1 release notes, written by the Hermes maintainers, set the release date as November 9, 2026. GitHub's published timestamp on the tag is 2026-11-10T01:42:15Z.
The user-facing fix: after the plugin catalog's site deploy on November 9, plugin-catalog.json was larger than the 2 MiB cap clients accept. Every install silently fell back to the catalog it shipped with. hermes plugins install could not find plugins added since your last update, installed the pin your release shipped instead of the current one, and missed newer removed entries. v0.23.1 raises the cap to 16 MiB, so the live catalog is used again. The notes cite pull request 151860, which fixes issue 151856. Installs that stay on v0.23.0 or older keep falling back until they update.
The same notes say the tag rolls up about 618 pull requests merged since v0.23.0 into the GitHub release, the Microsoft Store app, Docker, and Hermes Cloud. Measured at commit 3b421578588, that window is 2,578 non-merge commits across 2,781 files, 618 merged pull requests, and 409 closed issues. Full curated notes for the window are deferred to v0.24.0.
The release lists other work in the window and says it is undocumented here on purpose. The items it names include Esc to backtrack in the TUI and classic CLI, group chats that run on a gateway without Desktop and can seat bots from other computers, saved gateway connections shared by Desktop and the Webapp, signing the in-app browser in with your real browser profile, hermes gateway attach for local clients, hermes clipboard image --json, and additions to the plugin API. Treat that list as the release's own index, not as a finished changelog.
Why it matters
If hermes plugins install has been missing plugins you can see on the catalog site, you are on the fallback catalog. Updating to v0.23.1 is what makes the client accept the live file. Staying on v0.23.0 keeps the silent fallback.
Do not read v0.23.1 as a small catalog-only build. The maintainers say hundreds of pull requests landed and that the write-up of those changes ships with v0.24.0. The named items, including Esc backtrack replacing the rewind list picker, are in this tag. The detailed behavior is not, until v0.24.0.
Frequently asked questions
Why would plugin install ignore new catalog entries?
The v0.23.1 notes say the published catalog exceeded a 2 MiB client cap, so clients used the catalog bundled with the release. v0.23.1 raises the cap to 16 MiB.
Which date should I use?
The release notes say November 9, 2026. GitHub published the tag at 2026-11-10T01:42:15Z.