The API address or key of the Hermes Agent has obviously changed, but the Open WebUI is still configured, which is usually not because Hermes has not restarted, but because the Open WebUI only reads these environment variables when it is first started, and then the connection information is written to its own internal database. The official documentation clearly reminds of this.
The right way to deal with it
- If you only want to change the connection parameters, go directly to the Admin settings of Open WebUI to modify it, not just change the Docker environment variables.
- If you want to start all over again with the new environment variable, delete the Open WebUI data volume and restart it.
- At the same time, make sure that the Hermes
API_SERVER_KEYhas been updated synchronously, otherwise the front-end will continue to report authentication errors if it is correct.
Why many people mistake it for the Hermes question
Because what you see is "I changed OPENAI_API_BASE_URL and OPENAI_API_KEY, but the page doesn't change", your instinct is that Hermes is still caching. In fact, the cache is configured by Open WebUI itself, not Hermes Agent.
The most time-saving conclusion of this question is that changing the environment variable is only effective for the first start. Existing instances can either be changed in the Admin UI or rebuilt by clearing the Open WebUI data volume.
Official open source address: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent; Official document entry: https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/.
