How to check if the Hermes Agent Modal backend startup fails?

If the Hermes Agent Modal backend fails to start, first confirm that the local Modal CLI is available: install the modal package, complete the modal setup, and then set the terminal.backend to modal. If Modal is not logged in or has no permissions, Hermes' terminal tools will not run.

Standard inspection sequence

1. Perform uv pip install modal or install modal in the Hermes environment.
2. Perform modal setup to complete account authorization.
3. Run hermes config set terminal.backend modal.
4. Have Hermes execute a minimal command, such as pwd or python --version.

Common misconceptions

Modal is a cloud/serverless execution environment and is not equivalent to an on-premises file system. You need to confirm whether the required code, dependencies, and data will be brought to the execution environment, or if you should use Docker/SSH instead. A lot of "backend failures" are actually tasks that assume a local path exists, but not in the Modal container.

If you just want to isolate locally, Docker is more intuitive; If you want to put execution in a cloud-elastic environment, Modal is more suitable. Select the right backend first, and then check the configuration.