If you are an open-source maintainer, developer advocate, or builder, you know the cycle: you build an amazing tool, but writing the launch blog post, documentation, or tutorial takes hours.
For the Hermes Agent Challenge, I wanted to build something that solves this exact problem. I built devto-blogger, a custom, prompt-driven skill for the brand new Hermes Agent by Nous Research.
It autonomously scans any workspace or codebase, analyzes the architecture, and drafts a fully-structured, rich Markdown technical article ready for publication on DEV.
🚀 What is Hermes Agent?
Hermes Agent is an open-source agentic system built by Nous Research (the lab behind the famous Hermes LLM models). Unlike basic coding copilots or simple chatbot wrappers, Hermes is:
- Environment-Aware: It runs sandboxed in Docker, Modal, Daytona, SSH, or locally.
- Connected: It interfaces with Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, and more.
- Closed Learning Loop: It has persistent memory and creates custom skills on the fly from its own experience.
🔧 The Entry: The devto-blogger Skill
In Hermes Agent, a "skill" is defined by a simple, declarative Markdown file (SKILL.md) located in the ~/.hermes/skills/ directory. By utilizing a prompt-driven skill structure, we can guide the agent's behavior globally without writing complex Python orchestration scripts.
Here is the custom skill I designed and installed for this challenge:
---
name: devto-blogger
description: "Scan the codebase and generate a comprehensive Dev.to technical blog post draft."
version: 1.0.0
author: Hermes Agent Developer
license: MIT
platforms: [linux, macos, windows]
metadata:
hermes:
tags: [devto, blogging, documentation, markdown, technical-writing]
related_skills: [plan, design-md]
---
# Dev.to Technical Blogger Skill
Use this skill when you need to write an in-depth technical post, review, or tutorial about the active workspace or codebase.
## Core Behavior
1. **Codebase Inspection**: Scan repository structure, configuration, and dependencies.
2. **Drafting Strategy**: Write a high-quality technical article suitable for DEV.
3. **Content Structure**: Outline introduction, the problem, technical walkthrough, and implementation code snippets.
4. **Output File**: Save the draft under `drafts/devto-submission.md`.
💡 How It Works Under the Hood
When I run Hermes in my workspace and instruct it to write a post:
hermes -z "Generate a blog post about our new project"
-
Activation: Hermes detects that the task matches the
devto-bloggerskill signature. -
Analysis: The agent uses its built-in codebase tools to list directories, view file structures, and parse key files (like
package.json,requirements.txt, or config files). -
Drafting: It synthesizes the information and writes a custom, highly engaging Dev.to markdown draft directly to the
/draftsfolder.
🏆 Why This Matters for the Open Source Community
Writing documentation and developer outreach content is often the most neglected part of software development. By leveraging Hermes Agent:
- No More Cold Starts: Get a comprehensive first draft in seconds.
- Accurate Code Snippets: The agent reads the exact code from your workspace, ensuring snippets are correct.
- Zero Effort Context: Because Hermes is fully sandboxed, it acts directly on your working environment.
🛠️ Try It Yourself!
To install Hermes Agent and configure your own custom skills:
# Install Hermes Agent
curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash
# Run setup
hermes setup
Place the SKILL.md template above in ~/.hermes/skills/creative/devto-blogger/SKILL.md and start automating your developer outreach!
Built with love using Hermes Agent during the 2026 Hermes Agent Challenge.
