Overview

Busy Mode is a desktop plugin for Hermes Agent (Electron) that adds a visible busy-mode toggle to the composer controls — closing the gap between the CLI /busy command and the desktop UI. Built by Woodsy as a contribution to the open-source Hermes Agent project by Nous Research.

When Hermes is working, a new icon button appears in the composer controls row (between dictation and steer). Click to cycle through three modes. Toast notification confirms each change.

Modes

⚡ Layers3

Message waits in queue, runs after current response completes

🎮 SteeringWheel

Nudges the current run (same as Mod+Enter)

■ Square

Stops current response immediately, submits your message

Mode Icon Behavior
Queue (default)
Steer
Interrupt

Demo

Animated demo GIF — showing the busy mode button in action on the Hermes desktop composer.

Installation

Busy Mode is included in the surfdib fork of hermes-agent on the feature/busy-mode-selector branch:

# Clone the surfdib fork
git clone https://github.com/surfdib/hermes-agent.git
cd hermes-agent

# Switch to the busy mode branch
git checkout feature/busy-mode-selector

# Build the desktop app
cd apps/desktop
npm install
npm run build

GitHub

File Changes

3 files changed, +/-60 lines:

NEW — nanostore atom $busyMode + cycleBusyMode()

MODIFIED — busy mode toggle button with icons, tooltips, haptic feedback

MODIFIED — submitDraft() reads $busyMode and dispatches accordingly

File Change
apps/desktop/src/store/busy-mode.ts
apps/desktop/src/app/chat/composer/controls.tsx
apps/desktop/src/app/chat/composer/index.tsx

How It Works

Uses nanostores for state management. The key integration is in submitDraft() inside composer/index.tsx:

} else if (payloadPresent) {
  const mode = $busyMode.get()
  if (mode === 'steer' && canSteer) {
    steerDraft()
  } else if (mode === 'interrupt') {
    triggerHaptic('cancel')
    void Promise.resolve(onCancel()).then(() => {
      const submittedAttachments = cloneAttachments(attachments)
      triggerHaptic('submit')
      clearDraft()
      clearComposerAttachments()
      dispatchSubmit(text, submittedAttachments)
    })
  } else {
    queueCurrentDraft()
  }
}

Includes haptic feedback on mode changes and toast notifications confirming the active mode. Closes GitHub issue #1804.

Changelog

Initial release — Queue/Steer/Interrupt modes, toast notifications, haptic feedback

Version Changes
1.0

Author: Woodsy (surfdib) · License: MIT · Status: Ready for testing

Links