Hermes Integration (MCP)

Wire Hermes (NousResearch) to the Rensei BYOA MCP facade - generate the client config and connect.

This page covers wiring Hermes specifically to the Rensei BYOA MCP facade (/api/cli/mcp). For the full facade reference - the tool contract, dispatch and polling flow, receipt verification, rate limits, and troubleshooting - see BYOA MCP Facade.

Prerequisites

You need an rsk_* API key with dispatch:invoke scope, at least one published BYOA workflow in your org, and Hermes v0.3+ (or any host that supports Streamable HTTP MCP transport with bearer auth headers). See BYOA MCP Facade > Prerequisites for the key-creation and workflow-provisioning details.

Never embed the rsk_* token in config files or commit it to source control. Reference it via a secret manager or an environment variable.

Wiring Hermes

Option A - generate the config block via CLI

rensei dispatch mcp

This prints the MCP client config block, filling in your token if one is configured (otherwise a Bearer <YOUR_RSK_TOKEN> placeholder). Pass --write <path> to write it to a file.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "rensei": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://app.rensei.ai/api/cli/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer <rsk_token>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Option B - manual YAML entry

Add this block to your Hermes optional-mcps config (adjust top-level keys to match whatever Hermes's registry schema requires; the schema was not publicly finalised as of the date of this doc):

mcpServers:
  rensei:
    type: http
    url: https://app.rensei.ai/api/cli/mcp
    headers:
      Authorization: "Bearer ${RENSEI_API_KEY}"

Set the environment variable before starting Hermes:

export RENSEI_API_KEY="rsk_live_<your_token>"

${RENSEI_API_KEY} relies on the host expanding environment variables in header values, and not all MCP hosts do this. If yours sends the header literally, every call returns 401 Unauthorized. In that case inject the raw token from your secret manager, or use Option A, which writes the token directly.

Connectivity check

Verify the connection with the initialize handshake and a list_workflows call - see BYOA MCP Facade > Connectivity check. From there, dispatch a run, poll for the receipt, and verify it.

BYOA MCP Facade - the full facade reference (tools, dispatch, receipts, troubleshooting)
BYOA MCP Facade API reference - the generated request/response contract
MCP Session Tools - the per-session MCP endpoint (memory, knowledge graph, A2A tools)
API Key Authentication - creating and scoping rsk_* keys