Journal — 2026-05-17-hermes-cleanup

Summary

Removed the local Hermes Agent installation from sepia. Hermes is now accessed remotely via SSH from the macbook. Host-side binaries, venv, and Ansible playbook cleaned up.

Context

Hermes was previously installed directly on sepia with a Python venv at ~/.hermes/hermes-agent/. The user decided to consolidate Hermes usage to the macbook and access sepia remotely via SSH. See related plan: PLANS/2026-05-17-hermes-cleanup.md.

Changes

Change 1: Backup created

Files: /media/scratch/hermes-pre-cleanup-2026-05-17.tar.gz
What: Full backup of ~/.hermes/ before any destructive changes
Commands: bash cd ~ && tar czf /media/scratch/hermes-pre-cleanup-2026-05-17.tar.gz .hermes/

Change 2: Ansible playbook removed

Files: /ansible/sepia/setup_hermes.yml (deleted)
What: Removed the playbook that installed Hermes host dependencies

Change 3: Host packages removed

What: Removed exclusively-Hermes packages
Commands: bash sudo apt-get remove -y xvfb fonts-noto-color-emoji fonts-unifont
Note: uv was kept per user request

Change 4: Local installation removed

Files: ~/.local/bin/hermes, ~/.hermes/hermes-agent/, ~/.hermes/lsp/ (all deleted)
What: Removed the git checkout, Python venv, launcher wrapper, and LSP artifacts

Change 5: Documentation updated

Files: /opt/docs/HEARTBEAT.md, /opt/docs/MEMORY.md
What: Added cleanup reminder and Hermes remote access note

Decisions

Keep ~/.hermes/ data directory intact for potential future Docker use
Keep uv on the host — user explicitly requested this
Leave general-purpose packages (nodejs, npm, ripgrep, ffmpeg, build-essential, python3-dev, libffi-dev) in place

Issues Encountered

Original plan file 2026-05-14-hermes-docker-migration.md was lost during an earlier git reset — had to reconstruct from context

Next Steps

[ ] Prune backup after 2026-05-31: /media/scratch/hermes-pre-cleanup-2026-05-17.tar.gz
[ ] If Docker migration proceeds: create compose.hermes.yaml (link: PLANS/2026-05-17-hermes-docker-remote.md)

Generated: 2026-05-17