Summary

Two related bugs share the same root cause: Hermes does not define a per-profile HOME directory, which breaks the expected isolation between profiles and causes tool configuration to be lost on Docker container updates.

Bug 1 — Docker: system tool configuration is not persisted

The official Docker setup documents /opt/data (mapped to ~/.hermes/) as the persistent volume. A reasonable user expects this to be sufficient to survive container updates.

However, many system tools write their configuration to /root/ instead of /opt/data/, and /root/ is not persisted:

• git → /root/.gitconfig, /root/.git-credentials
• ssh → /root/.ssh/
• gh, gcloud, npm, and others → /root/.config/...

Actual behavior: after docker pull + container recreate, all tool configuration is lost even though Hermes-specific data in /opt/data survives.

Expected behavior: the official setup should either persist tool configuration or document clearly that /root/ must be mounted separately.

Current workaround: mounting /root as an additional Docker volume. This works but is not clean — it mixes system paths with user data and can cause compatibility issues across container version upgrades.

Bug 2 — Profiles: system credentials are shared across all profiles

The profiles documentation presents profiles as a way to run multiple independent agents on the same machine. A reasonable user expects profiles to be isolated from each other, including credentials and system tool configuration.

What is isolated per profile ✅

• config.yaml, .env, SOUL.md
• memories/, sessions/, skills/, cron/, state.db

What is NOT isolated (shared across all profiles) ❌

• /root/.gitconfig → all profiles share the same git identity
• /root/.ssh/ → all profiles share the same SSH keys
• /root/.config/ → all profiles share tool credentials

Actual behavior: it is impossible to run two profiles with different git identities, SSH keys, or tool credentials simultaneously.

Expected behavior: profiles should isolate system-level configuration, or the documentation should clearly state that profiles do not provide system-level isolation.

Root cause

Both bugs have the same cause: Hermes runs all profiles as root with HOME=/root hardcoded and does not set a per-profile HOME. All system tools therefore write to the same /root/ directory regardless of which profile is running.

Proposed fix

Set HOME per profile to a path inside the profile's persistent directory:

HOME=/opt/data/profiles/{profile_name}/home

Or for the default/single profile:

HOME=/opt/data/home

This would fix both bugs at once:

• Docker persistence: system tools write to $HOME inside the volume → survives container updates ✅
• Profile isolation: each profile has its own $HOME → credentials and configs are isolated ✅

Known limitations

Setting $HOME covers the majority of common tools (git, ssh, npm, pip, gh...) but is not a complete solution. Some programs resolve the home directory via getpwuid(getuid()) at runtime, which always returns /root for the root user regardless of the $HOME environment variable. A fully complete solution would require running each profile under a different system UID. We raise this so the team can evaluate the right level of isolation to target.

Alternative (partial fix)

If changing HOME globally is not feasible, allowing per-profile environment variable overrides in config.yaml would partially address the issue:

env:
  GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL: /opt/data/profiles/work/home/.gitconfig
  SSH_AUTH_SOCK: /opt/data/profiles/work/home/.ssh/agent.sock

This does not solve the Docker persistence problem and requires users to configure each tool manually, but would at least allow basic credential isolation per profile.

Environment

• Hermes Agent running in Docker (official image)
• Docker volume: ~/.hermes:/opt/data
• Multiple profiles intended for different agent identities
• Tools used: git, gh, ssh, and others that write to /root/