Scarf

A native macOS companion app for the Hermes AI agent.
Full visibility into what Hermes is doing, when, and what it creates.

Available in English, 简体中文, Deutsch, Français, Español, 日本語, and Português (Brasil).

What's New in 2.2

• Project Templates — Scarf projects can now travel. Package a project's dashboard, agent instructions, skills, cron jobs, and a typed configuration schema into a .scarftemplate bundle, hand it to anyone, and they install it in one click. Every bundle ships with a cross-agent AGENTS.md (agents.md standard) so the instructions work in Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Aider, and the 20+ other agents that read it natively. Browser-based one-click install via scarf://install?url=… deep links. Export / Install from File / Install from URL live under the new Templates menu in the Projects toolbar.
• Typed configuration with Keychain-backed secrets — Templates declare a schema with seven field types (string, text, number, bool, enum, list, secret). A Configure step in the install flow renders the form, routes secrets to the macOS Keychain, and drops non-secret values into <project>/.scarf/config.json. A slider icon in the dashboard header opens the same form post-install for edits — rotate a token, change a site, toggle a feature, and the next cron run picks it up.
• Public template catalog — awizemann.github.io/scarf/templates/ is a static catalog site generated from templates/<author>/<name>/ in this repo. Each template has a detail page with a live dashboard preview, the schema rendered with constraint summaries, and a one-click install button. Community submissions go through a CI-enforced Python validator that mirrors the Swift-side invariants.
• Preview-before-apply — Every install shows a preview sheet listing the exact project directory that will be created, every file inside it, every skill that will be namespaced, every cron job that will be registered (paused by default), every Keychain secret that will be written, and a live diff of any memory appendix. Markdown fields render inline. Nothing writes until you click Install.
• Site tab — A dashboard with at least one webview widget gets a second tab next to Dashboard. The example awizemann/site-status-checker template uses this to render whatever URL you configured as your first watched site, updating on every cron run.
• Safe-by-design — Skills install into ~/.hermes/skills/templates/<slug>/ so they never collide with your own. Cron jobs carry a [tmpl:<id>] tag and start paused. A template.lock.json records every file, cron job, Keychain ref, and memory block for one-click uninstall. Exports carry the configuration schema but never the user's values — safe on projects with live config. Templates never touch config.yaml, auth.json, sessions, or credentials.

See the full v2.2.0 release notes and the Project Templates wiki page.

Previously, in 2.1

• Seven languages — Full UI translations for Simplified Chinese, German, French, Spanish, Japanese, and Brazilian Portuguese on top of English. Scarf respects the system language by default; override per-app via System Settings → Language & Region → Apps → Scarf. Contributor workflow for adding more locales is documented in CONTRIBUTING.md → Adding a Language.
• Locale-aware number formatting — Currency, byte sizes, compact token counts (15K, 1.5M), and day-of-week charts now follow the user's locale instead of POSIX / English defaults.
• Chat slash-command menu — Type / in Rich Chat to browse every command the agent has advertised plus any user-defined quick_commands: from config.yaml. ↑/↓ to navigate, Tab/Enter to complete, Esc to dismiss.
• Chat polish — Auto-scroll on send and on prompt completion, a non-blocking loading spinner during session reconnects, properly centered empty state, and the long-standing "session loads with whitespace" bug fixed (LazyVStack → VStack in the message list).

See the full v2.1.0 release notes.

Previously, in 2.0

• Multi-server — Manage multiple Hermes installations (local + any number of remotes) from one app. Each window binds to one server; open them side-by-side.
• Remote Hermes over SSH — Every feature that worked against your local ~/.hermes/ now works against a remote host. File I/O routes through scp/sftp; chat ACP runs over ssh -T; SQLite is served from atomic .backup snapshots pulled on file-watcher ticks.
• Chat UX overhaul — No more white-screen flash on first message, no more scroll jumping into whitespace during streaming, failed prompts explain themselves instead of silently spinning forever.
• Correctness pass — Fixed remote WAL error spam, stale-snapshot session resume, auto-resume of dead cron sessions, 230+ Swift 6 concurrency warnings.

See the v2.0.0 release notes for the full 2.0 series.

Previously, in 1.6

• Platforms — Native GUI setup for all 13 messaging platforms, no more hand-editing .env
• Credential Pools — Fixed OAuth flow and API-key handling; pick providers from a catalog
• Model Picker — Hierarchical browser backed by the 111-provider models.dev cache
• Settings tabs — 10 organized tabs covering ~60 previously hidden config fields
• Configure sidebar — Personalities, Quick Commands, Plugins, Webhooks, Profiles

See the v1.6.0 release notes for the full 1.6 series.

Multi-server, one window per server

Scarf 2.0 is a multi-window app. Each window is bound to exactly one Hermes server — your local ~/.hermes/ is synthesized automatically, and you can add remotes via File → Open Server… → Add Server (host, user, port, optional identity file). Open a second window for a different server and the two run side-by-side with independent state.

Remote Hermes is reached over system SSH — the same ~/.ssh/config, ssh-agent, ProxyJump, and ControlMaster pooling your terminal uses. File I/O flows through scp/sftp; SQLite is served from atomic sqlite3 .backup snapshots cached under ~/Library/Caches/scarf/snapshots/<server-id>/; chat (ACP) tunnels as ssh -T host -- hermes acp with JSON-RPC over stdio end-to-end. Everything in the feature list below works against remote identically to local.

Remote setup requirements

The remote host must have:

1. SSH access — key-based auth via your local ssh-agent. Scarf never prompts for passphrases; run ssh-add once in Terminal before connecting.
2. sqlite3 on the remote $PATH — needed for the atomic DB snapshots. Install on the remote with apt install sqlite3 (Ubuntu/Debian), yum install sqlite (RHEL/Fedora), or apk add sqlite (Alpine).
3. pgrep on the remote $PATH — used by the Dashboard "is Hermes running" check. Standard on every distro; install procps if missing.
4. ~/.hermes/ readable by the SSH user. When Hermes runs as a separate user (systemd service, Docker container), the SSH user needs read access to config.yaml and state.db. Either (a) SSH as the Hermes user, (b) chmod Hermes's home to be group-readable and add your SSH user to that group, or (c) set the Hermes data directory field when adding the server to point at the right location (e.g. /var/lib/hermes/.hermes).

Troubleshooting remote connections

If the connection pill is green but the Dashboard shows "Stopped", "unknown", or empty values, the SSH user can't read the Hermes state files. Open Manage Servers → 🩺 Run Diagnostics (or click the yellow "Can't read Hermes state" pill in the toolbar). The diagnostics sheet runs fourteen checks in one SSH session — connectivity, sqlite3 presence, read access to config.yaml and state.db, the effective non-login $PATH — and tells you exactly which one fails and why, with remediation hints for each. Use the Copy Full Report button to paste the full output into a bug report.

For the common "Hermes isn't at the default path" case (systemd services, Docker), Test Connection in the Add Server sheet now probes /var/lib/hermes/.hermes, /opt/hermes/.hermes, /home/hermes/.hermes, and /root/.hermes when it can't find state.db at ~/.hermes/, and offers a one-click fill if it finds any of them.

Features

Scarf mirrors Hermes's surface area through a sidebar-based UI. Sections below map 1:1 to the app's sidebar.

Monitor

• Dashboard — System health, token usage, cost tracking, recent sessions with live refresh
• Insights — Usage analytics with token breakdown (including reasoning tokens), cost tracking, model/platform stats, top tools bar chart, activity heatmaps, notable sessions, and time period filtering (7/30/90 days or all time)
• Sessions Browser — Full conversation history with message rendering, model reasoning/thinking display, tool call inspection, full-text search, rename, delete, and JSONL export. Subagent sessions are filtered from the main list and accessible via parent session drill-down
• Activity Feed — Recent tool execution log with filtering by kind and session, detail inspector with pretty-printed arguments and tool output display

Interact

• Live Chat — Two modes: Rich Chat streams responses in real-time via the Agent Client Protocol (ACP) with iMessage-style bubbles, markdown rendering, tool call visualization, thinking/reasoning display, permission request dialogs, and a one-click /compress focus sheet (when Hermes advertises the command); Terminal runs hermes chat with full ANSI color and Rich formatting via SwiftTerm. Both modes support session persistence, resume/continue previous sessions, auto-reconnection with session recovery, and voice mode controls
• Memory Viewer/Editor — View and edit Hermes's MEMORY.md and USER.md with live file-watcher refresh, external memory provider awareness (Honcho, Supermemory, etc.), and profile-scoped memory support with profile picker
• Skills Browser — Browse installed skills by category with file content viewer and required config warnings. New in 1.6: Browse the Skills Hub, search by registry (official, skills.sh, well-known, GitHub, ClawHub, LobeHub), install, check for updates, and uninstall — all from the app

Configure (new in 1.6)

• Platforms — Native GUI setup for all 13 messaging platforms (Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, Email, Matrix, Mattermost, Feishu, iMessage, Home Assistant, Webhook, CLI). Per-platform forms write credentials to ~/.hermes/.env and behavior toggles to ~/.hermes/config.yaml. WhatsApp and Signal pairing use an inline SwiftTerm terminal for QR scan and signal-cli daemon management
• Personalities — List defined personalities, pick the active one, and edit SOUL.md inline with markdown preview
• Quick Commands — Editor for custom /command_name shell shortcuts with dangerous-pattern detection (rm -rf, mkfs, etc.)
• Credential Pools — Per-provider credential rotation with a fixed OAuth flow (URL extraction + browser open + code paste) and proper --type api-key handling. API keys never stored in UI state — only last-4 preview. Strategy picker (fill_first / round_robin / least_used / random)
• Plugins — Install via Git URL or owner/repo, update, remove, enable/disable. Reads ~/.hermes/plugins/ directly for reliable state
• Webhooks — Create, list, test-fire, and remove webhook subscriptions. Detects the "platform not enabled" state and links to gateway setup
• Profiles — Switch between multiple isolated Hermes instances. Create, rename, delete, export (zip), import. Safe-switch warning reminds users to restart Scarf after activating a different profile

Manage

• Tools — Enable/disable toolsets per platform with a connectivity-aware platform menu (green/orange/grey/red dots for connected/configured/offline/error). Fixed in 1.6: all 13 platforms now appear (was previously stuck on CLI)
• MCP Servers — Manage Model Context Protocol servers Hermes connects to. Add via curated presets (GitHub, Linear, Notion, Sentry, Stripe, and more) or fully custom (stdio command + args, or HTTP URL with optional bearer auth). Per-server detail view with enable/disable toggle, environment variable + header editor, tool-include/exclude filters, resources/prompts toggles, request and connect timeouts, OAuth token detection + clearing, and one-click "Test Connection" that runs hermes mcp test and surfaces the discovered tool list. Gateway-restart banner appears after config changes that require a reload
• Gateway Control — Start/stop/restart the messaging gateway, view platform connection status, manage user pairing (approve/revoke)
• Cron Manager — View scheduled jobs with pre-run scripts, delivery failure tracking, timeout info, and [SILENT] job indicators. New in 1.6: full write support — create, edit, pause, resume, run-now, and delete jobs from the app
• Health — Component-level status and diagnostics. New in 1.6: inline "Run Dump" and "Share Debug Report" buttons (the latter with an upload-confirmation dialog before sending to Nous support)
• Log Viewer — Real-time log tailing for agent.log, errors.log, and gateway.log with level filtering, component filter (Gateway / Agent / Tools / CLI / Cron), clickable session-ID pills that filter to a single session, and text search
• Settings — Restructured in 1.6 into a 10-tab layout: General, Display, Agent, Terminal, Browser, Voice, Memory, Aux Models, Security, Advanced. Exposes ~60 previously hidden config fields including all 8 auxiliary model tasks, container limits, full TTS/STT provider settings, human-delay simulation, compression thresholds, logging rotation, checkpoints, website blocklist, Tirith sandbox, and delegation. One-click Backup & Restore via hermes backup / hermes import. Model picker replaces the old free-text model field, backed by the models.dev cache (111 providers, all major models) with a "Custom…" escape hatch

Project Dashboards

Custom, agent-generated dashboards for any project. Define stat boxes, charts, tables, progress bars, checklists, rich text, and embedded web views in a simple JSON file — Scarf renders them with live refresh. Let your Hermes agent build and maintain project-specific visualizations automatically. See Project Dashboards below for the full schema.

System

• Hermes Process Control — Start, stop, and restart the Hermes agent directly from Scarf
• Menu Bar — Status icon showing Hermes running state with quick actions

Requirements

• macOS 14.6+ (Sonoma)
• Xcode 16.0+
• Hermes agent v0.6.0+ installed at ~/.hermes/ on each target host (v0.9.0+ recommended for full feature support)
• For remote servers: SSH access (key-based), sqlite3 on the remote (for atomic DB snapshots), and the hermes CLI resolvable from the remote user's PATH or at a path you specify per server.

Compatibility

Scarf reads Hermes's SQLite database and parses CLI output from hermes status, hermes doctor, hermes tools, hermes sessions, hermes gateway, and hermes pairing. Automatic schema detection provides backward compatibility with older databases while supporting new features in newer Hermes versions.

Hermes Version	Status
v0.6.0 (2026-03-30)	Verified
v0.7.0 (2026-04-03)	Verified
v0.8.0 (2026-04-08)	Verified
v0.9.0 (2026-04-13)	Verified
v0.10.0 (2026-04-18)	Verified (recommended for full 2.0 feature support)

Scarf 2.0 targets Hermes v0.10.0 for the ACP session/fork/list/resume capabilities used by remote chat. Earlier Hermes versions remain supported for monitoring, sessions, and file-based features; ACP-specific behavior may gracefully degrade on older agents.

If a Hermes update changes the database schema or CLI output format, Scarf may need to be updated. Check the Health view for compatibility warnings.

Install

Pre-built Binary (no Xcode required)

Download the latest build from Releases:

• Scarf-vX.X.X-Universal.zip — Apple Silicon + Intel (recommended)
• Scarf-vX.X.X-ARM64.zip — Apple Silicon only (smaller download)

1. Unzip and drag Scarf.app to Applications
2. Launch normally — builds are Developer ID signed and notarized, so Gatekeeper accepts them on first launch

Scarf checks for updates automatically on launch via Sparkle and daily thereafter. You can disable automatic checks or trigger a manual check from Settings → General → Updates or the menu bar icon.

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/awizemann/scarf.git
cd scarf/scarf
open scarf.xcodeproj

Or from the command line:

xcodebuild -project scarf/scarf.xcodeproj -scheme scarf -configuration Release -arch arm64 -arch x86_64 ONLY_ACTIVE_ARCH=NO build

Architecture

Scarf follows the MVVM-Feature pattern with zero external dependencies beyond SwiftTerm:

scarf/
  Core/
    Models/       Plain data structs (HermesSession, HermesMessage, HermesConfig, etc.)
    Services/     Data access (SQLite reader, file I/O, log tailing, file watcher)
  Features/       Self-contained feature modules
    Dashboard/    System overview and stats
    Insights/     Usage analytics and activity patterns
    Sessions/     Conversation browser with rename, delete, export
    Activity/     Tool execution feed with inspector
    Projects/     Agent-generated project dashboards with widget rendering
    Chat/         Rich ACP chat and embedded terminal with voice controls
    Memory/       Memory viewer and editor
    Skills/       Skill browser by category
    Tools/        Toolset management per platform
    MCPServers/   MCP server registry, presets, OAuth, tool filters, test runner
    Gateway/      Messaging gateway control and pairing
    Cron/         Scheduled job viewer
    Logs/         Real-time log viewer
    Settings/     Structured config editor
  Navigation/     AppCoordinator + SidebarView

Data Sources

Scarf reads Hermes data directly from ~/.hermes/:

Source	Format	Access
state.db	SQLite (WAL mode)	Read-only
config.yaml	YAML	Read-only
memories/*.md	Markdown	Read/Write
cron/jobs.json	JSON	Read-only
logs/*.log	Text	Read-only
gateway_state.json	JSON	Read-only
skills/	Directory tree	Read-only
hermes acp	ACP subprocess (JSON-RPC stdio)	Real-time chat
hermes chat	Terminal subprocess	Interactive
hermes tools	CLI commands	Enable/Disable
hermes sessions	CLI commands	Rename/Delete/Export
hermes gateway	CLI commands	Start/Stop/Restart
hermes pairing	CLI commands	Approve/Revoke
hermes mcp	CLI commands	Add/Remove/Test MCP servers
mcp-tokens/*.json	JSON (per-server OAuth)	Detect/Delete
.scarf/dashboard.json	JSON (per-project)	Read-only
scarf/projects.json	JSON (registry)	Read/Write

The app opens state.db in read-only mode to avoid WAL contention with Hermes. Management actions (tool toggles, session rename/delete/export) go through the Hermes CLI.

Dependencies

Package	Purpose
SwiftTerm	Terminal emulator for the Chat feature
Sparkle	Auto-updates from the GitHub-hosted appcast

Everything else uses system frameworks: SQLite3 C API, Foundation JSON, AttributedString markdown, SwiftUI Charts, GCD file watching.

How It Works

Scarf watches ~/.hermes/ for file changes and queries the SQLite database for sessions, messages, and analytics. Views refresh automatically when Hermes writes new data.

The Chat tab has two modes. Rich Chat communicates with Hermes via the Agent Client Protocol (ACP) — a JSON-RPC connection over stdio — streaming responses in real-time with automatic reconnection and session recovery on connection loss. Terminal mode spawns hermes chat in a pseudo-terminal for the full interactive CLI experience with proper ANSI rendering. Sessions persist across navigation in both modes — switch tabs and come back without losing your conversation.

Management actions (renaming sessions, toggling tools, editing memory) call the Hermes CLI or write directly to the appropriate files, keeping Scarf and Hermes in sync.

The app sandbox is disabled because Scarf needs direct access to ~/.hermes/ and the ability to spawn the Hermes binary.

Project Dashboards

Project Dashboards turn Scarf into a customizable monitoring hub for all your projects. You define a simple JSON file in your project folder describing what to display — stat boxes, charts, tables, progress bars, checklists, rich text, and embedded web views — and Scarf renders it as a live-updating dashboard. Your Hermes agent can generate and maintain these dashboards automatically.

What You Can Build

• Development dashboards — test coverage, build status, open issues, sprint progress
• Data project trackers — pipeline metrics, data quality scores, processing throughput
• Deployment monitors — deploy history tables, uptime stats, error rate charts
• Research dashboards — experiment results, key findings, paper status checklists
• Agent activity views — cron job results, content generation stats, task completion rates
• Embedded web apps — local dev servers, HTML reports, Grafana dashboards, any web-based tool your agent generates
• Any project status — if your agent can measure it, Scarf can display it

Quick Start

1. Create the dashboard file

Create .scarf/dashboard.json in any project folder:

{
  "version": 1,
  "title": "My Project",
  "description": "Project status at a glance",
  "sections": [
    {
      "title": "Overview",
      "columns": 3,
      "widgets": [
        {
          "type": "stat",
          "title": "Test Coverage",
          "value": "87%",
          "icon": "checkmark.shield",
          "color": "green",
          "subtitle": "+2.1% this week"
        },
        {
          "type": "progress",
          "title": "Sprint Progress",
          "value": 0.73,
          "label": "73% complete",
          "color": "blue"
        },
        {
          "type": "list",
          "title": "Tasks",
          "items": [
            { "text": "Write unit tests", "status": "done" },
            { "text": "Update API docs", "status": "active" },
            { "text": "Deploy to prod", "status": "pending" }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

2. Register your project

In Scarf, go to Projects in the sidebar and click the + button to add your project folder. Or have your agent add it directly to the registry at ~/.hermes/scarf/projects.json:

{
  "projects": [
    { "name": "my-project", "path": "/Users/you/Developer/my-project" }
  ]
}

3. View in Scarf

Select your project in the Projects sidebar — the dashboard renders immediately. Scarf watches the file for changes and refreshes automatically whenever the JSON is updated.

Widget Types

Type	Description	Key Fields
stat	Key metric with large value display	value, icon, color, subtitle
progress	Progress bar with label	value (0.0–1.0), label, color
text	Rich text block	content, format ("markdown" or "plain")
table	Data table with headers	columns, rows
chart	Line, bar, or pie chart	chartType, series (each with name, color, data)
list	Checklist with status indicators	items (each with text, status: done/active/pending)
webview	Embedded web browser	url, height (default 400)

The webview widget embeds a live web browser directly in your dashboard — perfect for displaying local dev servers, HTML reports, or any web-based tool your agent generates.

When a dashboard includes a webview widget, Scarf adds a tabbed interface: Dashboard shows your normal widgets, Site shows the web content full-canvas with clean margins — using the entire available space in the app. This gives you the best of both worlds: compact metrics at a glance, and a full embedded browser when you need it.

{
  "type": "webview",
  "title": "Project Report",
  "url": "http://localhost:8000/dashboard",
  "height": 500
}

• url: Any URL — typically a local server (http://localhost:...) or file path
• height: Height in points when displayed as an inline widget card (default: 400). The Site tab always uses full available space regardless of this setting.

Colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, teal, indigo, mint, brown, gray

Icons: Any SF Symbol name (e.g., checkmark.shield, cpu, doc.text, chart.bar)

Agent-Generated Dashboards

The real power is letting your Hermes agent build and update dashboards automatically. Add instructions like this to your agent's context:

Analyze this project and create a .scarf/dashboard.json dashboard with relevant metrics and status. Use stat widgets for key numbers, charts for trends, tables for structured data, lists for task tracking, and a webview widget if the project has a local web server or HTML reports. Register the project in ~/.hermes/scarf/projects.json if not already registered.

Your agent can update the dashboard as part of cron jobs, after builds, or whenever project state changes. Since Scarf watches the file, updates appear in real-time.

Dashboard Schema Reference

{
  "version": 1,
  "title": "Required — dashboard title",
  "description": "Optional — subtitle text",
  "updatedAt": "Optional — ISO 8601 timestamp",
  "sections": [
    {
      "title": "Section Name",
      "columns": 3,
      "widgets": [{ "type": "...", "title": "..." }]
    }
  ]
}

Each section defines a grid with 1–4 columns. Widgets flow left-to-right, wrapping to new rows. See DASHBOARD_SCHEMA.md for the full schema reference with examples of every widget type.

Releases

Scarf ships through GitHub releases — the App Store is not supported because Scarf spawns the user-installed hermes binary and reads ~/.hermes/ directly, both of which App Sandbox forbids.

Each release goes through a single local script: scripts/release.sh. The script archives a universal binary, signs it with the Developer ID Application cert, submits to notarytool, staples the ticket, produces the distribution zip, signs an appcast entry with Sparkle's EdDSA key, pushes an updated appcast.xml to the gh-pages branch, creates the GitHub release, and tags main.

The Sparkle appcast is served from awizemann.github.io/scarf/appcast.xml.

Signing prerequisites (one-time):

• Developer ID Application certificate in the login Keychain
• scarf-notary keychain profile registered via xcrun notarytool store-credentials
• Sparkle EdDSA private key in Keychain item https://sparkle-project.org (back this up — without it, shipped apps can never receive updates)

Template Catalog

Community-contributed Scarf project templates live under templates/ in this repo and are browsable at awizemann.github.io/scarf/templates/ with live dashboard previews and one-click scarf://install?url=… links.

• Install from the web — click "Install with Scarf" on any template's detail page; the app takes over from there.
• Install from a local file — Scarf → Projects → Templates → Install from File…, or double-click any .scarftemplate in Finder.
• Author a template — see templates/CONTRIBUTING.md for the full walkthrough. Fork, drop a template under templates/<your-github-handle>/<your-name>/, open a PR; CI validates the bundle automatically.

The catalog's site is a static HTML + vanilla JS build generated by tools/build-catalog.py and driven by scripts/catalog.sh (check / build / preview / publish). Appcast and main landing page are independent — updating the catalog never disturbs Sparkle.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please open an issue to discuss what you'd like to change before submitting a PR.

1. Fork the repo
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/my-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add my feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/my-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

For template submissions, see templates/CONTRIBUTING.md — same flow, with a catalog-specific checklist + automated CI validation.

Support

If you find Scarf useful, consider buying me a coffee.

License

MIT