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99	Honcho Memory	AI-native persistent memory via Honcho — dialectic reasoning, multi-agent user modeling, and deep personalization

Honcho Memory

Honcho is an AI-native memory backend that adds dialectic reasoning and deep user modeling on top of Hermes's built-in memory system. Instead of simple key-value storage, Honcho maintains a running model of who the user is — their preferences, communication style, goals, and patterns — by reasoning about conversations after they happen.

:::info Honcho is a Memory Provider Plugin Honcho is integrated into the Memory Providers system. All features below are available through the unified memory provider interface. :::

What Honcho Adds

Capability	Built-in Memory	Honcho
Cross-session persistence	✔ File-based MEMORY.md/USER.md	✔ Server-side with API
User profile	✔ Manual agent curation	✔ Automatic dialectic reasoning
Multi-agent isolation	—	✔ Per-peer profile separation
Observation modes	—	✔ Unified or directional observation
Conclusions (derived insights)	—	✔ Server-side reasoning about patterns
Search across history	✔ FTS5 session search	✔ Semantic search over conclusions

Dialectic reasoning: After each conversation, Honcho analyzes the exchange and derives "conclusions" — insights about the user's preferences, habits, and goals. These conclusions accumulate over time, giving the agent a deepening understanding that goes beyond what the user explicitly stated.

Multi-agent profiles: When multiple Hermes instances talk to the same user (e.g., a coding assistant and a personal assistant), Honcho maintains separate "peer" profiles. Each peer sees only its own observations and conclusions, preventing cross-contamination of context.

Setup

hermes memory setup    # select "honcho" from the provider list

Or configure manually:

# ~/.hermes/config.yaml
memory:
  provider: honcho

echo "HONCHO_API_KEY=your-key" >> ~/.hermes/.env

Get an API key at honcho.dev.

Configuration Options

# ~/.hermes/config.yaml
honcho:
  observation: directional    # "unified" (default for new installs) or "directional"
  peer_name: ""               # auto-detected from platform, or set manually

Observation modes:

unified — All observations go into a single pool. Simpler, good for single-agent setups.
directional — Observations are tagged with direction (user→agent, agent→user). Enables richer analysis of conversation dynamics.

Tools

When Honcho is active as the memory provider, four additional tools become available:

Tool	Purpose
`honcho_conclude`	Trigger server-side dialectic reasoning on recent conversations
`honcho_context`	Retrieve relevant context from Honcho's memory for the current conversation
`honcho_profile`	View or update the user's Honcho profile
`honcho_search`	Semantic search across all stored conclusions and observations

CLI Commands

hermes honcho status          # Show connection status and config
hermes honcho peer            # Update peer names for multi-agent setups

Migrating from `hermes honcho`

If you previously used the standalone hermes honcho setup:

Your existing configuration (honcho.json or ~/.honcho/config.json) is preserved
Your server-side data (memories, conclusions, user profiles) is intact
Set memory.provider: honcho in config.yaml to reactivate

No re-login or re-setup needed. Run hermes memory setup and select "honcho" — the wizard detects your existing config.

Full Documentation

See Memory Providers — Honcho for the complete reference.

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