Persistent Goals — AI's Long-Term To-Dos

Imagine telling a colleague, “Please organize this pile of files and let me know when you’re done,” then walking off to a meeting without checking in every five minutes. That’s exactly what /goal does for Hermes: it hands over a task that doesn’t need constant babysitting.

What’s Actually Happening?

Normally, when you chat with Hermes, it answers one round and stops. With /goal, it “keeps the objective in mind.” After each response, a built-in “judge” model checks: Has the goal been achieved? If not, Hermes automatically continues working—until the goal is complete, you say stop, or it exhausts its preset “turn budget” (20 rounds by default).

When Should You Use /goal?

Simple answer: when you’re tired of repeating “continue.” For example:

• “Fix all lint errors in src/ and confirm ruff check passes”
• “Port feature X from repo Y, including tests, and make CI green”
• “Investigate why session IDs occasionally drift during compression, then write a report”

If you only need one step done, skip /goal. It’s meant for tasks where you’d otherwise say “keep going” three times.

How Is It Different from Kanban? (Important!)

People often confuse the two, but the line is clear:

Your Need	What to Use
Finish one task within this chat	/goal <task description>
Many independent tasks with dependencies, roles, handoffs	Kanban (hermes kanban create …)
A board card that should iterate until acceptance	Add --goal when creating the card

Key point: /goal is “single-chat” only. It doesn’t create board cards, assign work to other profiles, or move things onto a board. Conversely, pausing, resuming, or clearing a goal in chat never touches any board card. For board work, you must create it yourself with hermes kanban create.

How to Use It — Three Steps

1. Type your command directly:

/goal Fix every failing test in tests/hermes_cli/ and make sure scripts/run_tests.sh passes for that directory

2. You’ll see a confirmation: ⊙ Goal set (20-turn budget): <your goal>

3. Hermes starts working. After each round, the judge checks progress. If unfinished, it continues—until done or the budget runs out.

Summary + Practical Tip

/goal is the “set it once, walk away” feature. It turns your repeated nudging into AI self-discipline. But remember: it only manages the current chat, not the board. For juggling multiple tasks, go with Kanban.

Practical tip: On your first try, make the goal specific—include acceptance criteria like “verify command X passes.” This helps the judge determine completion accurately, so you won’t worry about it drifting off course.