Hermes WAG Summarizer

End-to-end guide to get Hermes automatically summarizing a WhatsApp group on a schedule and delivering the digest back to the same group (or anywhere else).

What you get when done:

• Hermes bot in your WhatsApp group, stays silent unless @mentioned
• Only you (the owner) can DM the bot — other contacts are blocked
• Automatic digest every 12 hours (configurable), delivered to the group
• Short, scannable format — 150–400 words, bulleted, readable in 30 seconds on mobile

For production details, advanced config, and incident history of a live setup, see whatsapp-jsonl-cron-digest.

Prerequisites

• Hermes Agent running on a VPS (Linux)
• A phone number dedicated to the bot (recommended) or your own number
• The Hermes gateway running (hermes gateway start or via systemd)

Step 1 — Pair WhatsApp

hermes whatsapp

Scan the QR code with the bot's WhatsApp. Wait for "WhatsApp connected" in the logs. The bridge starts at http://localhost:3000.

Verify:

curl -s http://localhost:3000/health
# expected: {"status":"connected", ...}

Step 2 — Configure bot behavior

This is the most important config step. Without it, the bot responds to every message in every group.

What each setting does:

• require_mention: true — bot only responds when @mentioned, replied to, or a message starts with /. Ordinary group chatter is ignored.
• group_policy: open — allows groups to trigger the bot at all. The default is pairing which silently blocks all groups.
• dmpolicy: allowlist — only numbers in allowfrom can DM the bot.
• allow_from — your phone number (without +, with country code). Everyone else is blocked.

Edit ~/.hermes/config.yaml (use shell or hermes config, do NOT use agent patch/write_file on this file):

whatsapp:
  require_mention: true
  group_policy: open
  dm_policy: allowlist
  allow_from:
    - "628XXXXXXXXX"   # your phone number, no + sign
  extra:
    group_policy: open
    dm_policy: allowlist
    allow_from:
      - "628XXXXXXXXX"

Edit ~/.hermes/.env:

WHATSAPP_ALLOWED_USERS=628XXXXXXXXX
WHATSAPP_REQUIRE_MENTION=true
WHATSAPP_GROUP_POLICY=open
WHATSAPP_DM_POLICY=allowlist

Also set in config.yaml (prevents LLM response wrapping in group deliveries):

cron:
  wrap_response: false

Restart gateway after making changes (ask your Hermes operator / confirm first):

systemctl --user restart hermes-gateway.service

Verify behavior:

• Send a plain message in the group → bot stays silent ✓
• @mention the bot → bot responds ✓
• DM from your number → bot responds ✓
• DM from another number → bot stays silent ✓

Step 3 — Verify messages.jsonl is live

The summary cron reads messages from ~/.hermes/whatsapp/messages.jsonl. This file must grow as new messages arrive.

# Check file exists and is recent
ls -lh ~/.hermes/whatsapp/messages.jsonl

# Send a test message to any group, then:
tail -2 ~/.hermes/whatsapp/messages.jsonl | python3 -m json.tool

If the file is missing or never updates, the bridge.js in your Hermes version may not have JSONL logging. See whatsapp-jsonl-cron-digest → "Data source" section and references/bridge-js-jsonl-patch.md for the fix.

Step 4 — Find your group chat ID

python3 - << 'EOF'
import json
from pathlib import Path

seen = {}
with open(Path.home() / ".hermes/whatsapp/messages.jsonl") as f:
    for line in f:
        try:
            obj = json.loads(line)
        except Exception:
            continue
        if obj.get("isGroup") and obj.get("chatId") not in seen:
            seen[obj["chatId"]] = obj.get("chatName", "?")

for cid, name in seen.items():
    print(f"{cid}  →  {name}")
EOF

Note down the chatId for your target group (format: [email protected]).

Step 5 — Deploy scripts and create the cron job

5a. Copy the parser script to your scripts directory:

mkdir -p ~/.hermes/scripts
cp ~/.hermes/skills/productivity/hermes-wag-summarizer/scripts/whatsapp-group-summary.py \
   ~/.hermes/scripts/

Smoke test:

cd ~/.hermes/scripts
python3 whatsapp-group-summary.py "[email protected]" 12 | python3 -m json.tool | head -20
# Should show message_count > 0 if the group had activity in the last 12h

5b. Create a wrapper script for your group:

Copy scripts/wrapper-template.py from this skill and edit it:

cp ~/.hermes/skills/productivity/hermes-wag-summarizer/scripts/wrapper-template.py \
   ~/.hermes/scripts/mygroupname-summary.py

Edit the two values at the top:

TARGET_CHAT = "[email protected]"  # your group chat ID
HOURS_BACK = 12

5c. Create the cron job (ask Hermes to create it, or use the template below):

Name:     My Group 12-jam summary
Script:   mygroupname-summary.py
Schedule: 0 5,17 * * *        ← 12:00 & 00:00 WIB
Deliver:  whatsapp:[email protected]
Workdir:  ~/.hermes/scripts
Skills:   productivity/hermes-wag-summarizer

Or tell Hermes:

Buat cron job: nama "VibeDev ID 12-jam summary", script vibedev-summary.py, schedule "0 5,17 *", deliver ke whatsapp:[email protected], workdir ~/.hermes/scripts, skill hermes-wag-summarizer

Cron prompt template

Use this as the prompt when creating the cron job. Replace [Nama Grup] with your group name.

Kamu menerima data JSON dari script pre-run yang berisi pesan-pesan WhatsApp dari grup [Nama Grup] untuk 12 jam terakhir.

Tugas: Buat ringkasan SINGKAT, PADAT, dan TO THE POINT dalam Bahasa Indonesia.
Target panjang: 150-400 kata total. Orang baca di HP, harus bisa scan dalam 30 detik.

Struktur output:

*Ringkasan [Nama Grup] - 12 Jam Terakhir* [1 emoji]

• [Topik 1: 1-2 kalimat langsung ke inti]
• [Topik 2: ...]
• [dst — gabungkan obrolan serupa, lewati yang trivial]

*Pertanyaan terbuka:*
- [pertanyaan yang belum terjawab, atau "—" kalau gak ada]

*Link:*
- [url + konteks 1 baris, atau "—" kalau gak ada]

Aturan:
- Setiap topik MAXIMAL 2 kalimat. Bukan paragraf panjang.
- Gunakan • (bullet) untuk topik.
- Jangan pakai sub-heading per topik.
- Gunakan *teks* (satu bintang) untuk penekanan. JANGAN **bold**.
- Emoji maksimal 2-3 total.
- Gabungkan obrolan kecil/santai jadi 1 bullet kalau perlu disebut.
- Abaikan spam/stiker/emoji-only.
- JANGAN respond dengan [SILENT].
- Kalau message_count: 0, kirim: judul + "Belum ada aktivitas chat di grup selama 12 jam terakhir."

Output format example

*Ringkasan VibeDev ID - 12 Jam Terakhir* 🚀

• *Kimi K3 open-weight resmi rilis* — Moonshot AI drop 2.8T params, context 1M, native vision. Independent testing nemu 51% hallucination rate yang gak ada di benchmark resmi.

• *Karakter China muncul di output Opus 5* — dicurigai ribuan akun pakai API Anthropic dari Asia Tenggara untuk distilasi model ke China.

• *fastworks-mcp* dari Indra — bisa dicolok ke Hermes buat agent tawar-menawar otomatis sama client.

• Obrolan kecil: ada member kena WA ban, rekomen cap.so sebagai screen recorder.

*Pertanyaan terbuka:*
- Biteship API untuk kirim barang — belum ada yang jawab.

*Link:*
- https://kimi.com/blog/kimi-k3 — official Kimi K3 announcement

Config reference (complete)

# ~/.hermes/config.yaml

whatsapp:
  require_mention: true        # only respond to @mention / reply / leading /
  group_policy: open           # allow groups (default 'pairing' = blocks all groups!)
  dm_policy: allowlist         # only allow_from numbers can DM
  allow_from:
    - "628XXXXXXXXX"           # owner phone, no + sign
  extra:
    group_policy: open         # must be set in both places
    dm_policy: allowlist
    allow_from:
      - "628XXXXXXXXX"

cron:
  wrap_response: false         # clean delivery without "Cronjob Response:" header

# ~/.hermes/.env

WHATSAPP_ALLOWED_USERS=628XXXXXXXXX
WHATSAPP_REQUIRE_MENTION=true
WHATSAPP_GROUP_POLICY=open
WHATSAPP_DM_POLICY=allowlist

Pitfalls

group_policy defaults to pairing which silently blocks ALL groups. This is the most common reason the bot never replies in a group. Always set it to open.

messages.jsonl may not exist on modern Hermes installs. The bridge.js JSONL logger was removed from newer versions. Summaries will always return 0 messages. Fix: see references/bridge-js-jsonl-patch.md in whatsapp-jsonl-cron-digest.

Cron script arguments don't work. The scheduler treats the entire script field as a file path. Passing whatsapp-group-summary.py [email protected] 12 will fail with "Script not found". Always use a zero-argument wrapper per group.

Bridge can show connected but summaries return 0 messages. Bridge enters a stuck state after crash/decrypt failure where health looks fine but it stopped writing to jsonl. Fix: restart gateway. Set up whatsapp-bridge-watchdog for proactive alerts.

grouppolicy: open without requiremention: true makes the bot respond to everything. Always pair them together.

**Do NOT set WHATSAPPALLOWEDUSERS=*** — opens the bot to everyone at the bridge level.

Troubleshooting

For production setups

Once running, load whatsapp-jsonl-cron-digest for:

• Live inventory of your active cron jobs
• Advanced parser diagnostics
• Bridge watchdog setup
• Failed delivery recovery recipes
• Known incident post-mortems