# Hermes Startup developer portal

For agents and developers integrating with or building on Hermes Startup.

## What is public here

Hermes Startup has no hosted execution or payment API: the product runs inside the user's own Hermes Agent through an installable skill, and the paid continuation is processed by Stripe. What is public and stable is the set of machine-readable documents below, served as static files that need no JavaScript, no API key, and no rate limiting to read.

## Quickstart

An agent whose user wants to start with Hermes Startup should do three things:

1. Install the canonical skill: `hermes skills install https://hermesstartup.com/skill/SKILL.md`
2. Start the workflow with `/startup`.
3. Ask the ten questions one at a time; the free result is 3 of the user's 10 potential ideas, each explained in detail.

Read for-agents.md (https://hermesstartup.com/for-agents.md) for the full handoff and safety boundaries.

## Resource index

- llms.txt (https://hermesstartup.com/llms.txt) — canonical agent guide (when to use Hermes Startup and how to call it).
- llms-full.txt (https://hermesstartup.com/llms-full.txt) — expanded agent context.
- index.json (https://hermesstartup.com/index.json) — structured agent index.
- for-agents.md (https://hermesstartup.com/for-agents.md) — agent handoff guide (markdown mirror of the homepage).
- openapi.yaml (https://hermesstartup.com/openapi.yaml) and openapi.json (https://hermesstartup.com/openapi.json) — OpenAPI 3.1 description of every public resource.
- API catalog (https://hermesstartup.com/.well-known/api-catalog) — RFC 9727 linkset for automated discovery.
- auth.md (https://hermesstartup.com/auth.md) — authentication and credentials statement for agents.
- api-error.json (https://hermesstartup.com/api-error.json) — the JSON error contract returned for unknown /api/* paths.
- website-to-api.md (https://hermesstartup.com/website-to-api.md) — the website-to-API service.
- ai-plugin.json (https://hermesstartup.com/.well-known/ai-plugin.json) — AI plugin manifest.
- security.txt (https://hermesstartup.com/.well-known/security.txt) — security disclosures.
- sitemap.xml and robots.txt — discovery for crawlers.
- Public source (https://github.com/33hodl/hermes-startup) — portable skill and local runtime source.

## API conventions

**Authentication:** none. All public endpoints are unauthenticated GET requests. See auth.md (https://hermesstartup.com/auth.md).

**Errors:** unknown /api/* paths return HTTP 404 with a JSON body: `{"error": {"code": "not_found", "message": "...", "resolution": "...", "docs": "https://hermesstartup.com/developers.html"}}`. Agents should parse this shape on API paths and the standard HTML 404 page elsewhere.

**Rate limits:** static pages are not rate-limited. The telemetry API at `api.hermesstartup.com` is rate-limited and returns the RFC 9218 RateLimit-* headers plus `Retry-After` on HTTP 429; honor those headers instead of guessing.

**Markdown mirrors:** every HTML page has a markdown mirror. Requests with `Accept: text/markdown` receive the markdown version (for example /about returns about.md); the mirrors are also served directly at /about.md, /contact.md, /developers.md, /privacy.md, /terms.md, and /changelog.md. Markdown or JSON responses carry `Vary: Accept, Accept-Encoding`.

## Sandbox

The free path is the sandbox: answering the ten questions costs nothing, requires no account, and runs entirely inside the user's Hermes Agent. The paid step is a one-time US$10 prepaid balance: prepaid, non-recurring, pay as you go, and explicitly approved by the user before any provider call or external action. The balance never expires, and auto top-up is optional.

## Contact

Questions about these resources? Email hello@hermesstartup.com or reach @DiamondHandsDig on X. See About (https://hermesstartup.com/about) for what Hermes Startup is and its boundaries.