Troubleshooting

Concrete diagnostic flows for the most common failure modes when running Hermes WebUI. Each entry has the symptom, the diagnostic commands you should run before opening an issue, and the fix that has worked for past reporters.

If your symptom isn't listed and the diagnostics don't narrow it down, file a bug at https://github.com/nesquena/hermes-webui/issues — include the relevant command output after redacting secrets, private paths, full .env files, full auth.json files, cookies, tokens, and password hashes.

"AIAgent not available -- check that hermes-agent is on sys.path"

Symptom. WebUI starts, shows the chat interface, but every chat request fails immediately with this error in the response or the server log. As of v0.51.6 the error includes a diagnostic block with the running Python interpreter, the relevant sys.path entries, and the most-common fix; on older versions the message is bare.

Why it happens. The WebUI imports the agent class at chat time via from run_agent import AIAgent. That import only succeeds if the running Python's sys.path contains either the hermes-agent checkout or a pip-installed copy of the agent. Three common failure modes:

Agent installed but not on sys.path. Most common. The agent is checked out somewhere (e.g. ~/Programmes/hermes-agent), the WebUI was launched with a Python that doesn't know about it, and there's no pip install -e . linking the two.
Symlink with a typo or wrong target. A symlink to the agent looks correct on ls, but readlink resolves to a path that doesn't exist or doesn't contain agent/__init__.py.
HERMES_WEBUI_AGENT_DIR set to the wrong directory. Override env var beats auto-discovery and points at a directory that has no agent code.

Step 1 — confirm the agent location

# If you have ~/hermes-agent (the default location):
ls -la ~/hermes-agent
readlink ~/hermes-agent          # if it's a symlink, where does it resolve?
ls ~/hermes-agent/agent/__init__.py 2>&1

The third command must succeed (the file must exist). If it fails, your symlink is broken or pointing at a directory that's missing the agent module — fix that first.

Step 2 — confirm the WebUI is using the right Python

cd ~/hermes-webui && ./start.sh 2>&1 | grep -iE 'agent|python|hermes_webui_python' | head -20

The startup banner prints which Python and agent dir it resolved. If the agent dir is empty or the Python is the wrong one, set the override:

export HERMES_WEBUI_AGENT_DIR=/absolute/path/to/hermes-agent
export HERMES_WEBUI_PYTHON=/absolute/path/to/agent/venv/bin/python
./start.sh

Step 3 — install the agent in editable mode

This is the most common fix and resolves the original issue #1695:

cd /path/to/hermes-agent          # the directory holding pyproject.toml + the agent/ module
pip install -e .                  # use the same python that runs the WebUI

Then restart the WebUI:

cd ~/hermes-webui
./start.sh

Step 4 — verify by importing manually

If steps 1-3 still don't work, check whether the WebUI's Python can import the agent at all:

$HERMES_WEBUI_PYTHON -c "from run_agent import AIAgent; print('ok')" 2>&1

(Replace $HERMES_WEBUI_PYTHON with the actual Python path from step 2 if the env var isn't set.) If this prints ok, the agent IS on sys.path for that Python — and the WebUI should work.

If this fails, import run_agent itself is broken — check that the agent's pyproject.toml lists run_agent as a top-level module or that the agent dir is on PYTHONPATH:

PYTHONPATH=/path/to/hermes-agent $HERMES_WEBUI_PYTHON -c "from run_agent import AIAgent; print('ok')"

If adding PYTHONPATH fixes it, persist the path either via pip install -e . (preferred) or by setting HERMES_WEBUI_AGENT_DIR to that directory.

When to file a bug

If after running steps 1-4 the import still fails and pip install -e . succeeded and PYTHONPATH=... python -c "from run_agent import AIAgent" succeeds — that's a real WebUI bug. File at https://github.com/nesquena/hermes-webui/issues with:

The output of every command in steps 1-4
The full diagnostic block printed by the WebUI's ImportError (v0.51.6+)
Your OS, Python version, and how the agent was installed

Other troubleshooting

This document grows over time. If a recurring failure mode isn't covered here yet, add it via PR. The format for each entry: Symptom → Why → Diagnostic commands → Fix → When to file a bug.

Related references:

docs/supervisor.md — process-supervisor setup (launchd, systemd, supervisord, runit/s6) including the bootstrap supervisor-foreground flag.
docs/docker.md — Docker compose setup, common failure modes, bind-mount migration.
docs/wsl-autostart.md — WSL2 auto-start at login on Windows.
docs/EXTENSIONS.md — WebUI extension injection, security model, examples.

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