AgentsAutonomy & tool use
Julian Goldie Demos Paid 'Agent OS' Approval Layer Built on Hermes Agent's Open-Source Kanban Board
Julian Goldie's closed-source Agent OS, sold inside his paid community, wraps Hermes Agent's open-source Kanban board with a plan-approval step and an Obsidian project log, but the upstream board already offers triage specs, review states and human-blocking tasks.
From the r/AISEOInsider (via last30days) article of October 17, 2026 and cited sources: The 'Kanban 2.0' in the demo is not a Nous Research release. [3] [8] [4]
SOURCES[3] Linked video: How I Ship Apps With the Hermes Agent Kanban… youtube.com[8] Julian Goldie Agent OS GitHub: Avoid Fake Repos aisuccesslabjuliangoldie.com[4] Hermes Agent v0.13.0 release github.com
AT Pulse research deskPublished · Updated · 5 min read · AI-assisted analysisAI-assisted, not human-edited. Methodology Corrections Who owns this site
- Original source
- r/AISEOInsider (via last30days) article, independent perspective
- Brief by
- AT Pulse research desk AI-assisted; publisher and contact on the desk page
- When
- October 17, 2026 article published
- Covered
- Oct 17 edition
- Evidence
- 9 sources across 8 sites
- 1How I Ship Apps With the Hermes Agent Kanban Boardreddit.com
- 2Hermes AI Kanban Just Got A Big Upgrade!reddit.com
- 3Linked video: How I Ship Apps With the Hermes Agent Kanban…youtube.com
- 4Hermes Agent v0.13.0 releasegithub.com
- 5BetterClaw: Hermes Agent v0.13 updatebetterclaw.io
- 6Agentpedia: Hermes Kanban guideagentpedia.codes
QuietHow it’s measured
YouTube video · 40 views
Reach blends public engagement (views, likes, comments, shares, stars) from the platforms where the story or its original source lives: YouTube, Hacker News, GitHub, Substack and similar. A video and the article written from its transcript share one score, taken from the video. Platforms with no data are left out rather than counted as zero, and the age of a story never lowers its score.
The 'Kanban 2.0' in the demo is not a Nous Research release. It is Agent OS, a proprietary local dashboard that is only distributed as a zip file to paying AI Profit Boardroom members. It sits on top of the Kanban board that Hermes Agent added in v0.13. The video says the agent underneath is unchanged. [3] [8] [4]
The upstream Hermes board already includes a triage specifier that turns rough ideas into task specs, an auto-decomposer that routes subtasks to specialist agents, a review status, and tasks that block until a human responds. This contradicts the video's claim that the earlier board had no human in the loop. [9] [3]
The demo's 'one line in, finished app out' claim rests only on the vendor's own run. The outputs shown are a landing page, a welcome checklist and a lead form. No error rates, failed runs or model details are reported, and the '10 times better' line has no measurement behind it. [3]
Upstream documentation shows that durable queues, task specification and human review are free in Hermes v0.13 and later.
Read the full assessment
Teams could rebuild the plan, approve, build and preview pattern themselves rather than adopt an unauditable layer that runs with full OS permissions.
Executive brief
The "Kanban 2.0" in this story is not a new release from Nous Research. It is Agent OS, a closed-source dashboard that Julian Goldie sells as a zip file inside his paid community. It sits on top of the open-source Kanban board that Hermes Agent added in v0.13 in May 2026. That upstream board already has a triage step that turns rough ideas into task specs, a review status and human-blocking states. So the "approve the plan first" gate shown in the video adds little that's new. The video's presenter is a "digital avatar" of Goldie, and no one outside his community has tested the workflow.
What changed and event timeline
Hermes v0.13 ships durable Kanban
Nous Research rewrote multi-agent Kanban with heartbeats, reclaiming of stuck tasks, zombie detection, retry budgets and shared boards across profiles.
Desktop Kanban plugin announced
A native Hermes Desktop Kanban plugin was merged to main and announced, according to a third-party guide. The guide notes the v2026.7.30 tag did not yet include it.
Goldie describes Agent OS layers
A video summary describes Agent OS in three layers: Hermes as the "brain," a mission-control dashboard and an Obsidian memory vault.
Agent OS confirmed proprietary
Goldie's own site says there is no Agent OS GitHub repo, warns about fake copies, and says the software is only available to paying AI Profit Boardroom members.
"Kanban 2.0" demo posted
The Reddit post and its linked video show a single-line idea going through agent planning, human approval and a background build, ending in a preview gallery.
Capabilities and access
- Upstream: Hermes Agent v0.13.0 (tag v2026.5.7) and later. Commands include
hermes kanban create/list/show/complete. A bundled React dashboard supports drag-and-drop and WebSocket updates. - Agent OS layer: a local dashboard with chat, voice and goals. It is only distributed as a zip inside the paid community (7:22).
- Model and version: the video does not name the language model or the Agent OS version.
Read the full section
- Upstream: Hermes Agent v0.13.0 (tag v2026.5.7) and later. Commands include
hermes kanban create/list/show/complete. A bundled React dashboard supports drag-and-drop and WebSocket updates. Source: Hermes Kanban docs. - Agent OS layer: a local dashboard with chat, voice and goals. The video says everything stays on your machine and no accounts are needed (1:17). It is only distributed as a zip inside the paid community (7:22).
- Model and version: the video does not name the language model or the Agent OS version.
Technical analysis for researchers and developers
- How the board works: tasks live in
~/.hermes/kanban.db(SQLite). Statuses are triage, todo, ready, running, blocked, review, done and archived. - Built-in planning: a triage "specifier" expands rough ideas into task specs, and an "auto-decomposer" splits a parent task into child tasks routed to specialist agents.
- Worker rules: a worker that exits without calling a closing tool such as
kanban_completeorkanban_blocktriggers a protocol violation.
Read the full section
- How the board works: tasks live in
~/.hermes/kanban.db(SQLite). A dispatcher reclaims stale claims every 60 seconds and launches each worker as a full OS process under a named profile. Statuses are triage, todo, ready, running, blocked, review, done and archived. Source: Hermes Kanban docs. - Built-in planning: a triage "specifier" expands rough ideas into task specs, and an "auto-decomposer" splits a parent task into child tasks routed to specialist agents. This is functionally close to the video's "let the agents shape it" step (3:11).
- Worker rules: a worker that exits without calling a closing tool such as
kanban_completeorkanban_blocktriggers a protocol violation. Workers with no heartbeat are reclaimed after 4 hours. - Memory: the Obsidian "memory" is plain-text project logs that agents read before work and write to afterwards (5:43). This can't be reproduced because the code is closed.
Claims and evidence
Read the full section
- "One line in, finished app out" (0:05): the only evidence is a demo by the vendor. The artifacts shown are a landing page, a welcome checklist and a lead form (4:48), not a full app. There are no metrics, error rates or failed runs.
- "10 times better" (5:41): a marketing phrase with no measurement behind it.
- The old board had no human in the loop (1:51): the upstream docs contradict this. They describe tasks that block for human input, comment threads and a review status (Hermes Kanban docs).
- Independent coverage: none found. The other coverage is a same-subreddit repost.
Context and prior work
- Nous Research positions Kanban as the durable option and
delegate_taskfor short fork-and-join calls (Hermes Kanban docs). - v0.13 also introduced
/goalpersistence and Checkpoints v2 (BetterClaw). - The video itself concedes that underneath "it's still the same agent." Agent OS only organizes the work (6:34).
Limitations, safety and contested findings
- Single machine only: Kanban runs on one host.
- Dashboard exposure: the dashboard is a privileged management surface.
- Approval doesn't replace controls: a plan-approval gate does not replace Git protections, access controls or code review (Agentpedia).
Read the full section
- Single machine only: Kanban runs on one host. Its separation between tenants is not a hard security boundary, and workers inherit the full permissions of the OS account they run under (Agentpedia).
- Dashboard exposure: the dashboard is a privileged management surface. Its authentication is implicit on localhost, and the docs warn against binding it with
--host 0.0.0.0(Hermes Kanban docs). - Approval doesn't replace controls: a plan-approval gate does not replace Git protections, access controls or code review (Agentpedia).
- Maturity: the
/goaljudge can declare success too early, and a commentator cited by BetterClaw summed up v0.13 as "Tenacity, not Production." BetterClaw sells a competing platform (BetterClaw). - Promotional framing: the narrator is an AI avatar (0:44), and the content repeatedly promotes the paid community (2:26). The captions are automatic and may contain errors.
Business and practitioner implications
- Most of the value is free: the open-source Hermes board already provides durable queues, triage specs, review states and human blocking without the paid layer.
- The real pattern is worth adopting: plan → human approval → background build → previewable output, plus a project log agents can read later.
- Before buying Agent OS: it is closed source and has no independent evaluation, so there's no way to audit what it runs with your OS permissions.
Read the full section
- Most of the value is free: the open-source Hermes board already provides durable queues, triage specs, review states and human blocking without the paid layer.
- The real pattern is worth adopting: plan → human approval → background build → previewable output, plus a project log agents can read later. It is easy to rebuild with upstream Kanban and a markdown vault.
- Before buying Agent OS: it is closed source and has no independent evaluation, so there's no way to audit what it runs with your OS permissions.
- Before deploying: use narrow worker profiles, scratch workspaces and keep the dashboard on localhost only.
The source trail.
Sources (9)
How I Ship Apps With the Hermes Agent Kanban Board
Feed excerpt only. A transcript of the video linked from this page is supplied (linked video auto captions; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU87X-MLJUE); automatic text may contain errors.
reddit.comHermes AI Kanban Just Got A Big Upgrade!
Related coverage; assess separately
reddit.comLinked video: How I Ship Apps With the Hermes Agent Kanban Board
linked video auto captions
www.youtube.com