sidebar_position: 4
title: Buzz Integration
description: >-
All three ways to connect Hermes Agent to Buzz — Block's Nostr-based
human+agent workspace
Buzz Integration
Buzz is Block's open-source, self-hostable workspace where humans and AI agents share the same channels. It is built on Nostr: every message is a signed event on a relay you own, and every participant — human or agent — is a keypair.
Hermes integrates with Buzz three ways. Pick by where Hermes runs and what you want it to do:
| ① Desktop runtime | ② Relay bridge (ACP) | ③ Native gateway platform | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Buzz Desktop spawns Hermes locally as a managed harness | Buzz's buzz-acp bridges a channel to hermes acp over stdio |
Hermes' gateway joins Buzz as a first-class messaging platform |
| Hermes runs | On your desktop, launched by Buzz | On a server, launched by buzz-acp |
In your own gateway, alongside Telegram/Discord/etc. |
| Best for | Trying Hermes inside Buzz Desktop with zero config | A hosted agent identity when Buzz owns the transport | Full Hermes: memory, skills, approvals, cron, sessions |
| Inbound | ACP stdio | ACP stdio (via relay WebSocket) | NIP-42-authenticated Nostr WebSocket (poll fallback) |
| Setup | Automatic discovery | buzz-acp env vars |
hermes gateway setup → Buzz |
① Buzz Desktop managed runtime
Buzz Desktop ships Hermes as a preset runtime. With Hermes installed the normal way, open Settings → Runtimes and Hermes appears automatically — discovery resolves the hermes-acp launcher on your login-shell PATH, which the installer writes to ~/.local/bin (and hermes update self-heals on older installs).
Full setup, troubleshooting, and the security posture (Buzz auto-approves tool permissions — keep agents owner-only): ACP Host Integration → Buzz Desktop
② Relay bridge (buzz-acp + ACP)
For a hosted Hermes identity that joins Buzz channels while Buzz's own harness owns the transport:
Buzz relay <-- WebSocket --> buzz-acp <-- ACP over stdio --> Hermes Agent
The spawned Hermes uses the same config, credentials, memory, and skills as hermes on that host. Key minting, channel discovery, owner-only telemetry (BUZZ_ACP_RELAY_OBSERVER), and headless-permission guidance: ACP Host Integration → Buzz channels (relay bridge)
③ Native gateway platform (recommended for full Hermes)
The bundled buzz platform plugin makes Buzz a normal Hermes messaging platform — channels, DMs, mention gating, threaded replies, reactions, images, and cron delivery (deliver=buzz), with Hermes' own approvals, memory, and session management intact. Inbound arrives over a persistent NIP-42-authenticated Nostr WebSocket (dependency-free BIP-340 signing) with automatic fallback to CLI polling; outbound goes through the buzz CLI.
hermes gateway setup # pick Buzz
Full configuration reference (env vars, config.yaml, transport modes, access control): Messaging → Buzz
Which one should I use?
- Just exploring, Buzz Desktop user → ① works out of the box.
- Running a community relay and want an agent identity managed by Buzz → ②.
- You already run Hermes as your agent and want Buzz as another channel → ③. This is the deepest integration and the one that keeps every Hermes feature.
①/② and ③ use different identities and transports; run ③ with its own dedicated Nostr keypair. The adapter takes a scoped lock on the relay+pubkey pair, so two Hermes profiles cannot accidentally drive one Buzz identity.
Credits
The Buzz integration was built with the community: @SHL0MS (PATH launcher + Desktop security audit), @NYTEMODEONLY (relay-bridge docs), @rob-coco (platform adapter), @ScaleLeanChris (Nostr WebSocket transport + NIP-42/BIP-340 signing), and @jethac (multi-agent verification).