Avatars and Bot Identity

Visual Identity in a Multi-Bot Crew

When you have multiple bots in a roster, visual distinction matters. Avatars make individual agents recognizable at a glance, and their animations provide feedback about what is happening -- an agent that is actively working looks different from one that is idle. Bot Mode offers four avatar systems, ranging from zero-configuration defaults to AI-generated portraits.

Geometric Faces

Every new bot starts with a geometric face avatar. The system offers 7 shapes and 10 colors, giving 70 possible combinations. You choose a shape and color when creating or editing a bot.

Geometric faces include an animation: the eyes scan while the bot is busy working. This scanning animation is visible in the roster and in the chat header, giving you a live signal that a bot is actively processing without having to open its chat to check. When the bot finishes and becomes idle, the animation stops.

For most crews, geometric faces are sufficient. They are immediately recognizable, clearly differentiated across the palette, and require no additional setup.

Custom Images

You can upload any image as a bot's avatar. The image replaces the geometric face in the roster and chat interface. Custom images are useful when you want a specific visual identity for a bot -- a logo for a project-specific agent, or a photo for a bot representing a persona.

AI-Generated Portraits

When an image backend is configured in Hermes (any provider that handles image generation), Bot Mode can generate a portrait for a bot on demand. This uses the standard image.generate RPC call that Hermes already exposes. The result is an AI-generated image that becomes the bot's avatar.

This option requires a configured image generation provider -- it is not available if your Hermes installation only has text model providers set up.

Pixel Pets

Pixel pets are a separate system that runs alongside any avatar type. A pixel pet bounces beside the bot's avatar while the bot is busy working -- similar to how the scanning eyes signal activity on geometric faces, but with more personality.

To browse available pets, run hermes pets from the terminal. This opens the petdex gallery where you can preview and select a pet for any bot. Pets are assigned per bot and appear in both the roster and the chat interface.

Appearance Sync Across Machines

Bot appearance metadata -- avatar type, color, shape, pet assignment, and custom images -- syncs automatically across desktops connected to the same backend. If you update a bot's avatar on one machine, the change appears on all other machines connected to that backend. No manual sync step is required.