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Notes: 04-20 Evidence Day

·514 words·3 mins·

Upcoming Stuff
#

  • Make it or break it evidence, due today.
  • On Wednesday, the CS&T faculty will meet and determine if we think you’re prepared present next week.
  • Next week: Final Presentations on Thursday and Friday evening (Figure 4-7pm both nights, with a good chance of finishing early). I haven’t gotten any emails about specific days, make sure to email me if you need a specific day.
  • Schedule questions?

Agentic Job Search #

https://github.com/nousresearch/hermes-agent

  • This is an agent tool (like OpenClaw, IronClaw, etc).
  • It’s a program you run on a concrete computer (desktop, VPS)
  • You hook it up to an LLM
  • It maintains persistent storage:
    • Full message history in a sqlite db with full text search
    • A MEMORY.md file with startup memories that will help it figure out what context to load up in new chats.
  • It can do stuff using two mechanisms: Tools and Skills

Tools
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Tools are local functions the LLM can call as a response.

For Hermes, these typically run Python scripts, on the host computer.

Here’s an example tool call the LLM can run:

memory(action="replace", target="memory",
       old_text="dark mode",
       content="User prefers light mode in VS Code, dark mode in terminal")

Stuff that’s built in:

  • Arbitrary shell commands on the host computer.
  • That includes setting cron jobs.
  • Web requests.

Stuff that it can do with API keys:

  • Web search

Skills
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Tools like running arbitrary shell commands are very powerful, but it can take an LLM a bit to figure out how to do stuff. A skill is a markdown file that:

  • Describes how to do a related set of tasks.
  • Is listed in the system prompt so the LLM can find it.

Example: TODO list

  • This could be a tool, just like the memory tool.
  • But it could also just be a skill like this:
## Skill: TODO List

We're maintaining a TODO list at ~/TODO.md

- To list tasks, read the file.
- To add an item: Check if it's in the list, then if not just append,
  like `echo "- Buy cat food" >> ~/TODO.md`
- To remove an item, use `grep -v`

You can just have the agent write skills out itself.

The Job Search #

I recently helped a friend of mine set up Hermes for a job search.

There’s a directory full of markdown files, managed by a skill.

  • A cron job triggers a scraper script each morning, polling a variety of sources each morning.
  • It keeps a list of jobs it finds.
  • After the script runs, it triggers the Hermes loop to read the summary, find a couple of appropriate jobs, and send them to the user in an IM.
  • The user can then accept / reject / discuss.
  • Rejections update the filter notes.
  • Once a job is accepted, Hermes will help with generating draft resume and cover letter specialized for that job.

Recommendation
#

If you want to play with this, get a VPS from a vendor like Vultr:

https://www.vultr.com/pricing/#cloud-compute

It’ll keep the agent up all the time and limits the security issues from letting an LLM run arbitrary code on your computer.

Nat Tuck
Author
Nat Tuck