ScoutAI: Building an Autonomous Opportunity Discovery Agent with Hermes Agent
How I used Hermes Agent to transform opportunity discovery into an intelligent, agent-driven workflow.
«Submission for the Hermes Agent Challenge — Build With Hermes Agent»
What I Built
Searching for opportunities has become a job of its own.
Whether you're looking for internships, scholarships, grants, hackathons, fellowships, startup competitions, or full-time jobs, the process is often fragmented across dozens of websites. Opportunities appear and disappear quickly, requirements vary widely, and finding the right match can take hours of manual research.
I wanted to explore a different approach.
Instead of building another search tool, I built ScoutAI, an autonomous opportunity discovery platform powered by Hermes Agent.
The goal was simple:
«What if an AI agent could continuously discover opportunities, analyze them, rank them, explain why they matter, and help users take action?»
ScoutAI acts as an intelligent career co-pilot that helps users discover, evaluate, and pursue opportunities more effectively.
The platform focuses on:
- Jobs
- Internships
- Scholarships
- Grants
- Fellowships
- Startup Competitions
- Hackathons
- Tenders
Rather than presenting endless search results, ScoutAI helps answer a more important question:
«Which opportunities are actually worth my time?»
Demo
ScoutAI was designed as an autonomous opportunity discovery platform where Hermes Agent acts as the intelligence layer responsible for planning, researching, ranking, and recommending opportunities.
Example Workflow
User Goal:
«Find AI internships in South Africa.»
Hermes Agent then:
- Creates an execution plan.
- Discovers opportunities.
- Extracts requirements.
- Matches opportunities against user goals.
- Ranks results.
- Generates recommendations.
- Produces an application strategy.
Agent Workflow
Goal Received
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Planning
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Research
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Opportunity Discovery
↓
Requirement Extraction
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Profile Matching
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Opportunity Ranking
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Recommendation Generation
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Application Strategy
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Action Plan
The objective was to make the agent's work visible rather than hiding everything behind a simple chat interface.
Code
GitHub Repository
https://github.com/darchumsone-collab/ScoutAI-Opportunity-Agent
Developer Profile
https://github.com/darchumsone-collab
Repository Highlights
- Android Application (Kotlin + Jetpack Compose)
- FastAPI Backend
- Hermes Agent Integration
- Opportunity Discovery Workflows
- Agent Activity Timeline
- Documentation & Architecture
- Future Roadmap
ScoutAI is open source and built specifically to demonstrate real-world agentic workflows using Hermes Agent.
My Tech Stack
Mobile
- Kotlin
- Jetpack Compose
- Material 3
- MVVM Architecture
Backend
- FastAPI
- Python
- PostgreSQL
AI & Search
- Hermes Agent
- Tavily
- OpenRouter
Infrastructure
- Docker
- GitHub
The Problem
Most opportunity platforms stop at discovery.
They help users find opportunities but leave everything else up to the user.
A typical workflow looks like this:
- Search for opportunities.
- Open dozens of tabs.
- Read requirements.
- Compare options.
- Decide what to apply for.
- Create an application strategy.
- Track deadlines manually.
This process is repetitive and time-consuming.
Many users miss valuable opportunities simply because they never discover them or don't have enough time to evaluate them properly.
I wanted to build something that acted more like an intelligent assistant than a search engine.
Why Hermes Agent?
The Hermes Agent Challenge emphasizes agentic capabilities.
That means the goal isn't simply to connect a language model to a user interface.
The goal is to build systems that can:
- Plan
- Reason
- Use tools
- Execute tasks
- Generate outcomes
Hermes Agent became the perfect foundation because it allows applications to move beyond simple conversations and into autonomous workflows.
Rather than asking users to perform every step themselves, ScoutAI delegates much of the work to the agent.
How I Used Hermes Agent
Hermes Agent is the core intelligence engine behind ScoutAI.
Rather than acting as a chatbot, Hermes Agent drives the entire opportunity discovery workflow.
Its responsibilities include:
Planning
The agent analyzes user goals and creates a strategy before taking action.
Research
The agent gathers information from relevant sources and evaluates potential opportunities.
Requirement Extraction
Opportunity requirements are analyzed and structured for comparison.
Matching
The system compares user goals, skills, and interests against discovered opportunities.
Ranking
Hermes Agent prioritizes opportunities based on relevance and potential value.
Recommendation Generation
The platform explains why specific opportunities should be considered.
Application Strategy Creation
ScoutAI generates actionable plans to help users move from discovery to application.
The objective was to showcase real agentic behavior through planning, reasoning, tool orchestration, and multi-step execution.
Core Features
Opportunity Discovery
ScoutAI automatically searches for relevant opportunities.
The platform can discover:
- Remote jobs
- Graduate programs
- AI internships
- Research opportunities
- Scholarships
- Grants
- Startup competitions
The goal is to reduce manual searching and centralize opportunity discovery.
Opportunity Intelligence Reports
Traditional search results often leave users to perform their own analysis.
ScoutAI generates structured intelligence reports that include:
- Match Score
- Strengths
- Weaknesses
- Missing Skills
- Opportunity Summary
- Recommended Actions
Agent Activity Timeline
One of the most important features is transparency.
Users can see how Hermes Agent reached its conclusions through a visible workflow timeline.
This transforms the AI from a black box into an observable system.
Career Growth Mapping
ScoutAI identifies:
- Current strengths
- Missing skills
- Learning recommendations
- Future opportunities
This helps users prepare for opportunities they may not yet qualify for.
Application Strategy Generation
Finding opportunities is only the first step.
ScoutAI also helps users act by generating:
- Application checklists
- Preparation plans
- Priority rankings
- Submission strategies
Technical Architecture
Frontend
The Android application was designed using:
- Kotlin
- Jetpack Compose
- Material 3
- MVVM Architecture
Backend
The backend is powered by:
- FastAPI
- Python
- PostgreSQL
FastAPI was selected because of its performance, scalability, and developer experience.
Search Layer
Opportunity discovery requires reliable access to information.
ScoutAI uses search tooling to gather relevant opportunity data and provide recommendations.
AI Layer
Hermes Agent sits at the center of the platform.
Responsibilities include:
- Planning
- Tool Selection
- Opportunity Evaluation
- Recommendation Generation
- Strategy Creation
The application is designed around the agent rather than treating the agent as an add-on feature.
Challenges Encountered
One of the most interesting challenges was balancing automation and transparency.
Fully autonomous systems can be powerful, but users still need visibility into how decisions are made.
This led to the creation of:
- Agent Activity Timeline
- Recommendation Explanations
- Match Scores
- Application Strategies
These elements help users understand and trust the recommendations generated by the system.
What I Learned
Building ScoutAI reinforced an important realization:
The future of AI applications is not simply about generating better answers.
It is about helping users achieve outcomes.
Planning, reasoning, tool usage, and decision support are what transform a language model into a useful agent.
Hermes Agent provides a powerful foundation for building these experiences.
Future Roadmap
Planned enhancements include:
- Continuous opportunity monitoring
- Enhanced agent memory
- Calendar integrations
- Application success prediction
- Advanced recommendation personalization
- Team collaboration features
Conclusion
ScoutAI explores how Hermes Agent can be used to create a practical, real-world autonomous system.
By combining opportunity discovery, reasoning, ranking, and action planning, the platform aims to reduce the time users spend searching and increase the time they spend pursuing meaningful opportunities.
The project demonstrates how agentic systems can move beyond conversation and become active participants in helping users accomplish their goals.
Project Repository
https://github.com/darchumsone-collab/ScoutAI-Opportunity-Agent
Developer
Darlington Chidera Mbawike
GitHub: https://github.com/darchumsone-collab
Thank you to the Hermes Agent team and the DEV Community for organizing this challenge.
Why Existing Opportunity Platforms Fall Short
Most opportunity platforms focus on discovery.
They help users find opportunities, but they do not help users make decisions.
A user is still responsible for:
- Researching opportunities
- Understanding requirements
- Comparing options
- Prioritizing applications
- Identifying skill gaps
- Building application strategies
This creates a significant cognitive burden.
The challenge I wanted to solve was not simply finding opportunities.
The challenge was helping users determine:
What should I apply for next, and why?
This shift from information retrieval to intelligent decision support became the foundation of ScoutAI.
Designing ScoutAI as an Agent Instead of a Search Tool
A traditional application might:
- Accept a query.
- Perform a search.
- Display results.
ScoutAI follows a fundamentally different approach.
When a user submits a goal, Hermes Agent treats that goal as a problem to solve.
Instead of immediately generating an answer, the agent:
- Understands the objective.
- Creates a plan.
- Selects tools.
- Gathers information.
- Evaluates findings.
- Produces recommendations.
- Generates an action plan.
This planning-first architecture is what makes ScoutAI agentic.
Agentic Capabilities Demonstrated
One of my primary goals for this project was to showcase Hermes Agent's strengths.
ScoutAI demonstrates several core agentic capabilities.
Goal-Oriented Planning
Rather than reacting to prompts, Hermes Agent creates a strategy for achieving user objectives.
Example Goal
Find AI internships in South Africa that match my background.
Agent Plan
- Identify opportunity sources
- Search opportunities
- Extract requirements
- Evaluate compatibility
- Rank results
- Generate recommendations
Tool Usage
Hermes Agent uses external tools to gather and process information.
This allows the system to move beyond static responses and interact with real-world data sources.
Multi-Step Reasoning
ScoutAI requires multiple reasoning stages.
The agent must:
- Understand opportunity requirements
- Compare opportunities
- Evaluate relevance
- Identify strengths and weaknesses
- Produce recommendations
Each stage builds on the output of the previous stage.
Decision Support
The goal is not simply to answer questions.
The goal is to help users make better decisions.
This distinction is what transforms ScoutAI from an information system into an intelligent assistant.
Technical Architecture Deep Dive
The architecture was intentionally designed around agent workflows.
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Android Client
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FastAPI Backend
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Hermes Agent
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Search Analysis Ranking
Tools Engine Engine
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Recommendations
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Action Plans
#HermesAgent #AI #OpenSource #AgenticAI #Android #FastAPI #MachineLearning #Automation #CareerTech #DEVChallenge
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