Why doesn't Hermes Agent read AGENTS.md? Look at the startup directory first

The Hermes Agent doesn't read your AGENTS.md, and it's most often not a broken file, but the wrong startup directory, or the current directory actually hits a higher priority .hermes.md. The official Context Files documentation is clearly written: project contexts are scanned by the working directory at startup, and project-level contexts have priority, .hermes.md → AGENTS.md → CLAUDE.md → .cursorrules, not all files are loaded brainlessly together.

Check these 3 things first

1. When you start Hermes Agent, the current directory is not the project root.
2. Whether there is already a .hermes.md in the current directory will take precedence over AGENTS.md.
3. AGENTS.md Whether it's in the directory you actually enter; The subdirectory rule is "discover when used", not to scan the whole disk at startup.

Why didn't AGENTS.md in the subdirectory take effect in the first place?

Because Hermes Agent uses "progressive discovery". When it starts, it reads the project context of the current directory first, and when it actually accesses the frontend/, backend/, and these directories, it will inject the AGENTS.md of the corresponding subdirectory.

In a word: AGENTS.md does not take effect, first see where you start, and then see if there are any higher priority files that hit first.

Official open source address: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent; Official document entry: https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/.