The Problem With Most AI Assistants
You know the drill. You fire up a new AI tool, and it asks you the same generic questions it asks everyone else. “How can I help you today?” It has no idea who you are, what you work on, what frustrates you, or what you have tried ten times before and already know does not work.
Every conversation starts from zero. Every session is a blank slate.
That is fine for quick one-off questions. But if you want an AI agent that actually becomes more useful over time, that anticipates your needs, that suggests things you did not even know were possible, you need something different.
You need an agent that wants to get to know you. Thanks to my good friend, Tony Simons on Twitter, I’ve got just the starter prompt for you to put into your Hermes Agent!
Enter the Interview Prompt
Someone on the Hermes team posted a prompt that I think should be the very first thing every new user runs. It is not flashy. It does not demo a cool trick. But it might be the single most valuable thing you can do in your first session.
Here it is:
Interview me to understand my goals, current projects, technical experience, daily workflows, biggest frustrations, and the kinds of things I’d like to automate or build.
Ask one question at a time and adapt your questions based on my answers.
As you learn about me, identify Hermes features, tools, skills, agents, automations, integrations, and workflows that could help me, especially ones I may not know exist yet.
At the end, give me:
A summary of what you learned about me.
The five best ways Hermes can help me right now.
The exact prompts or commands I should try first.
A simple plan for getting more value from Hermes over the next seven days.
Any useful skills, memories, or scheduled tasks you recommend creating.Before saving anything to memory or changing my setup, show me what you recommend and ask for approval.
Paste that into a fresh Hermes session. Then buckle up. What happens next is genuinely different from how any AI tool has ever onboarded you.
Why This Prompt Works So Well
It treats setup as a conversation, not a form. The prompt explicitly tells Hermes to ask one question at a time and adapt based on your answers. That means the interview flows naturally. It picks up on what you mentioned and drills deeper. If you say you are a software developer, it asks about your stack. If you say you manage a team, it asks about your workflows. It does not force you through a rigid checklist.
It surfaces features you did not know existed. Hermes has a lot of depth. Cron jobs, MCP servers, subagent delegation, memory management, gateway messaging across a dozen platforms, custom skills. A new user might not know to ask about any of these. The interview prompt specifically instructs Hermes to identify capabilities you may not know exist yet, so you learn about features that match your actual needs.
It creates memory that compounds. After the interview, Hermes understands your goals, your projects, your preferences, and your pain points. That goes into persistent memory. Every future session builds on that foundation instead of starting from scratch. The second conversation you have with Hermes will be noticeably better than the first because it remembers who you are.
It gives you an actionable plan. The prompt does not end with the interview. It asks for a concrete output: a summary, the top five things Hermes can do for you, the exact prompts to run next, a seven-day plan, and recommended skills or automations. You walk away with a roadmap, not just a warm feeling.
What a Real Session Looks Like
I have seen this play out a few times now. A new user pastes the prompt, and Hermes starts asking thoughtful questions: What do you do for work? What tools do you rely on? What is the most repetitive task in your day? What have you tried automating before that did not stick?
As the conversation unfolds, Hermes connects the dots. If you mention you run a WordPress site, it might suggest the editorial publisher setup or content drafting workflows. If you talk about managing a team, it might recommend scheduled check-ins or Slack integrations. If you mention you write reviews, it might surface writing skills and drafting templates.
By the end, the user has a plan that is tailored to their actual life, not a generic tutorial.
Why You Should Do This Even If You Are Not A Power User
Maybe you think of yourself as a casual user. You just want help with writing, research, and the occasional coding task. That is fine. The interview prompt works just as well for you.
Hermes will adapt to whatever level of depth you want. If you tell it you are not technical, it will tailor its suggestions accordingly. If you mention you write a blog or manage a side project, it will ask about that and offer relevant help.
The point is not to overwhelm you with features. The point is to help you discover the ones that matter to you.
The Best Time To Run This Prompt
Right now. Not after you have already configured a dozen things. Not after you have set up your own workflows that Hermes does not know about. The interview is most valuable when you run it fresh, before you have baked in assumptions about how things should work. Let Hermes do the initial setup thinking for you.
What To Expect After The Interview
Once the interview completes, Hermes will have a rich memory profile covering your goals, projects, tools, preferences, and frustrations. Future sessions will pick up right where you left off. When you ask for help, Hermes will have context about your work. When it suggests something, it will be based on what it learned about you, not generic advice.
The seven-day plan at the end of the interview is also worth following. It is usually practical and concrete, not theoretical. Things like setting up your first cron job, creating a skill for a recurring task, or connecting a messaging platform. Small steps that compound quickly.
AI agents are only as useful as the context they have about you. Running the interview prompt is the fastest way to give Hermes that context. It takes maybe ten minutes, and it changes everything about how the tool works for you. Paste it in. Let Hermes get to know you. You will be glad you did.
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