Set up a personal AI assistant with Hermes Agent, give it one useful job, and optionally add a simple local interface.
I started building Janet because I kept seeing people build their own Jarvis and talk about it like it was the future of work.
A lot of the demos were impressive. A lot of the claims were also very shiny.
So I wanted to do two things at once: show other people how to build something like this for themselves, and test whether the promise actually held up in real work.
That experiment is still in progress.
I have built an agent on OpenClaw before. I have also built AI products, automations, workflows, and other systems around real work. So the building part is not brand new to me.
The honest experiment is more specific: can AI help plan the work, create the assets, organize the systems, keep track of context, run repeatable workflows, and surface what needs attention?
Can it take enough operational weight off the human that the business actually moves, with more of my actual life happening outside the screen?
That is the question I am testing with Janet.
I’ve been sharing pieces of Janet on TikTok, and the comments keep circling around the same questions:
How did you build it? What are you using? Are you making a longer-form content tutorial, something?
This guide is my first answer. The starting point: what Janet is, what she runs on, how the setup works, and how you can begin to build your own version.
By the end, you will know how to install Hermes Agent, sketch a Janet-type assistant with a job and a voice, turn on the toolsets it actually needs, point it at a small approved workspace, and optionally build a very basic UI for talking to it.
A chatbot answers you in the moment.
A Janet-type assistant can carry context across the work.
That is the simplest distinction.
A chatbot can still be helpful. Sometimes you need a fast explanation, a first pass at an email, or someone to bounce a messy thought against. Fine. Great. Very normal use of the robot rectangle.
But the reset button is the problem.