Spending controls for Hermes
Set budgets, recipient rules, and approval thresholds for payments routed through the Hermes skill.
Connect Hermes to Conto
hermes skills install well-known:https:/CONTO_SDK_KEY in ~/.hermes/.env. Setup guide3. Try a testnet payment. Fund the configured Tempo Testnet wallet with pathUSD. Request authorization, transfer through your signer only after approval, then confirm the transaction hash.
Two-minute overview
Hermes procurement with payment checks
Your payment tools must require Conto authorization before signing. An unrestricted signer can bypass the check.
Agent receives task
Hermes agent is asked to provision a new GPU cluster on a cloud provider.
Agent identifies the vendor and calculates the cost: $2,400/month.
Payment request routed through Conto
The Conto skill sends the request to Conto with amount, recipient, category, and agent context.
Amount exceeds the $500 auto-approval threshold for this agent.
Approval authorizes the payment
The payment is held for human review. Designated reviewers receive a notification.
Reviewer approves the payment. The record keeps the agent, policy, approver, and transaction context.
What Conto adds to Hermes agents
Hermes decides what to do. Conto checks payment requests against your rules and records the results.
Spend limits
Set per-payment, daily, and monthly limits scoped to an agent, project, or environment.
Recipient checks
Payments to approved vendors can proceed. New recipients can require review.
Category policy
Keep autonomous purchases inside approved spend categories such as cloud services or data providers.
Payment frequency limits
Limit repeated payments within a time period.
Approval routing
Send high-value or unusual requests to the right reviewer with the request context attached.
Payment records
Keep agent, recipient, policy result, approver, and transaction hash in one auditable record.
Conto for Nous Hermes
Manage payment policy from Hermes
An authorized owner or administrator can use an admin SDK key to manage policies. Keep that key separate from the spending agent.
/conto limit each transaction to 200 pathUSD/conto only allow API_PROVIDER and CLOUD categories/conto block payments to 0x1a2b...3c4d/conto require approval for anything over 500 pathUSD/conto list my current policiesPayment activity for Hermes agents
Track requests, approvals, denied payments, spend trends, and alerts for Hermes agents from the same Conto workspace.
Documentation and references
Skill manifest
Install the skill, view source, and check version history.
Agent skill docs
Installation, configuration, SDK key setup, and usage examples.
Policy reference
Amount limits, category rules, recipient policy, approval routing, and evaluation examples.
SDK authentication
Standard vs admin keys, scopes, and API reference.