I'm not contradicting this but offering a contrast, I like Hermes because it simultaneously lowers barrier of entry and shows you what possibilities are unlocked by agents. I don't think I would have the time, interest or creativity to jump into the deep end by either extending an existing harness or rolling my own from the start. This also isn't an argument for doing just that, I might do so in the future, but critically only after Hermes has shown me what's possible and my preferences are developed.
I completely agree. I started with aichat[0] before the current agent trend and hit all kinds of bumps implementing agentic loops on my own. Then goose[1] showed me what a whole team working toward the same idea could do right before the official Claude Code harness which had all the bells and whistles. Now I know better what I want and its mostly less ram usage and a small set of primitives.
I still use Claude code (and codex and other big contenders) because they know what they are doing and innovate in ways I don't want to miss. And sometimes they are better at tasks.
[0]: 2023, https://github.com/sigoden/aichat [1]: 2024, https://github.com/aaif-goose/goose