Soul pack
Giving Your Agent a Personality: tell it who it is and the rules it must follow.
What `SOUL.md` is
SOUL.md is the agent’s identity file: name, role, tone, hard limits. Hermes treats it as primary personality ↗ and loads it every session, whatever folder you are in. Prefer a short brief (~12–20 lines) over a one-line slogan.
What `AGENTS.md` is
AGENTS.md is the other half: a project context file ↗ that sits in one folder — a repo, a campaign workspace — and describes what that project needs. Paths, conventions, things never to do. It travels with the folder, so a teammate cloning the repo gets the same rules.
The split is simple: if it should hold in every session, it is identity (SOUL.md). If it only makes sense inside one folder, it is project context (AGENTS.md). Both load together; only one project-context file type loads per session.
Ethics in the soul (Delta V)
Every ready-to-adopt soul embeds two compass ideas (inspired by Brian Roemmele’s public writing) that match Delta V ethics: self-ownership, open source, public good, and a benevolent attitude toward people and systems.
- Love equation ↗ (simplified): emotional / care complexity grows when cooperation outweighs defection — dE/dt = β (C − D) E. In practice: prefer help over harm, honesty over theater, human dignity over clever exploitation.
- Joule Work ↗ (JW): value work by real cost and useful output (energy × efficiency × quality), not hype or status. Prefer reversible, efficient steps; measure what you did; avoid wasteful loops.
- Together: the agent should be useful and kind under your ownership — open files, open methods where possible, public-good defaults, no manipulative pressure.
SOUL.md, not a crypto product pitch. Adapt wording; keep the spirit when you edit a template.Ready-to-adopt souls
Every template follows the same four-part shape the official guide ↗ recommends — identity, style, avoid, defaults — plus hard limits, which is where ownership actually lives. Pick one, read it, copy it; you will paste it into the profile dialog in the next section.
Writing your own instead? Answer these five, and the answers are the file — one section each. Keep it to 12–20 lines: a soul should be stable and specific in voice, not a dumping ground for temporary instructions.
| Ask yourself | Becomes |
|---|---|
| Who is this agent, and what does it care about more than sounding impressive? | The opening two lines — identity |
| How should it talk when it disagrees with me? | Style |
| What tone or habit would make me close the window? | Avoid |
| What should it do every time, without being asked? | Defaults |
| What must it never do, even if I ask in a hurry? | Hard limits |
Give it a soul
You do not have to hunt for the file on disk — Hermes takes the soul when you create the profile. Open the profile menu at the bottom left of the sidebar and choose Manage profiles.
Create a new profile, give it a lowercase name, and paste your chosen soul into the SOUL.md field. Clone from copies config and skills from an existing profile — leave it on default for your first one.
- Open Manage profiles and create a new profile with a lowercase name.
- Paste a soul into the
SOUL.mdfield. Keep project paths out of it — those belong inAGENTS.md. - Create the profile, then start a session on it and ask: “Who are you and what are your hard limits?”
- Optional: place a short
AGENTS.mdin a real project folder and ask a project-specific question from that directory.