Hermes: Automate Everything with Cron Jobs and AI Agents

July 10, 2026 · 9 min read

What Is Hermes?

Hermes is the task scheduler and cron gateway in the ZES system. It runs predefined jobs on schedules, triggers AI agents, and coordinates automated workflows across all your services.

What It Does

• Scheduled Jobs — Run scripts, API calls, and commands on cron schedules
• AI Agent Triggers — Launch AI agents at specific times or events
• Health Checks — Monitor services and restart failed ones
• IP Rotation — Automate Tor IP changes for privacy
• Notifications — Send alerts via Telegram when tasks complete

Example Cron Jobs

Here are the cron jobs running in my ZES system:

Setting Up a Cron Job

Hermes uses a simple JSON config file. Here's an example:

{
  "jobs": [
    {
      "name": "health-check",
      "schedule": "*/30 * * * *",
      "command": "curl -s http://localhost:8083/api/status",
      "timeout": 30
    }
  ]
}

AI Agent Automation

Hermes can trigger AI agents to perform complex tasks. For example, a daily research agent that summarizes news:

{
  "name": "daily-research",
  "schedule": "0 8 * * *",
  "agent": {
    "model": "groq/llama-3.3-70b-versatile",
    "prompt": "Summarize today's top AI news",
    "output": "/var/log/hermes/research.log"
  }
}

Why Automate?

Manual system administration is time-consuming. With Hermes handling the routine tasks, you get:

• 99.9% uptime — Services restart automatically if they crash
• Zero maintenance — Logs rotate, backups run, IPs change on their own
• Always fresh — AI providers are tested daily, broken ones are flagged

I haven't manually restarted a service or checked logs in weeks. Hermes handles everything.