I built managed hosting for Hermes Agent so I could stop babysitting a VPS

Ryan Martin — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 15:19:16 +0000

The problem

I run Hermes, an open-source agent with tools, memory, and cron built in. Before running my own managed service SaaS, I used various competitors to deploy on VPS. This method has a lot of downsides because you are often SSH'ing in and managing secrets directly in a .env file, which can leave you exposed if your box is compromised. It is also very cumbersome, especially for agencies to manage these "alway-on agents" for clients on VPS.

Luckily, these are just hosting problems, so I built SEAOTTER to fix it for myself, and then realized other people probably have the same problem.

*What it does
*

SEAOTTER is a managed control plane for Hermes Agent:

Per-agent isolation - each agent runs in its own namespace with a gVisor sandbox, so one client's agent can't see or touch another's.
Operate without SSH — pause, restart, restore, and read logs through an API instead of a terminal.
MCP-native — talk to a hosted agent from Claude, Cursor, or Codex.
Secrets handled for you — backed by Google Secret Manager instead of a .env file you have to remember exists.

The rough idea

POST /api/v1/agents or on "Create Agent", and it provisions a namespace, installs Hermes via Helm, brings up the sandbox, wires DNS/TLS, and gives you a reachable dashboard, typically in under five minutes.

Who it's actually for

Agencies running one isolated agent per client without spinning up a VPS per client
Hermes power users who want lifecycle control (pause/restart/restore) without maintaining SSH access
Hobbyists who want a standing assistant without becoming an ops person

Try it

There's a 14-day free trial on the Hobby plan. Worth being upfront: it currently asks for a card at checkout, which I know is friction — I'm working on a no-card way to try it. In the meantime, the docs walk through the API and dashboard in detail if you want to look before you sign up.

What I'd love feedback on

If you're currently self-hosting Hermes on a VPS: what would actually get you to switch, or keep you from switching?

Anything about the isolation model (namespace + gVisor per agent) that seems overkill or under-built for your use case?

Regarding MCP integration - Is anyone using this from an editor/agent client already, and what's missing?

I'll be in the comments. I'm happy to talk through the architecture or the tradeoffs I made.

DEV Community: Ryan Martin

I built managed hosting for Hermes Agent so I could stop babysitting a VPS