Hermes skills: Introduction and context

You installed Hermes and made it look better than ChatGPT. Most Hermes skills are serious things: GitHub PR workflows, research pipelines, developer operations automation, and similar developer functions; some people argue agents will shape the next era of the internet by allowing people to create on-demand, customized apps instead of waiting for someone else to publish an app on the Google Play Store that fits what they’re looking for. Hermes operates in six modes.

Zoltar skill: divination engine and technical basis

“The Zoltar skill is not a chatbot playing dress-up as a mystic. It’s a full divination engine running real calculation libraries.” The Zoltar description positions the skill as a computation-driven component of Hermes skills rather than a simple conversational toy. This framing emphasizes that Zoltar produces calculated outputs using programmed libraries and astronomical standards instead of relying on generic, free-form chatbot text.

“Ask for a natal chart and Hermes fires up Kerykeion—a Python library built on the Swiss Ephemeris, the same astronomical calculation standard used by professional astrology software for decades.” Users supply a date of birth, time, and city as input, and the system performs precise astronomical calculations. The outputs include every planetary position by sign and degree, house placements using the Placidus house system, the aspect grid, elements and modality breakdown, and retrograde flags, all derived from those inputs.

“The interpretation that follows cites the specific placements that justify each statement. Not generic personality traits.” Example phrasing in the source illustrates this approach: “with Mars in Aries in the 10th house square Pluto, your drive is intense but your relationship with authority will create recurring friction.” Those example lines show interpretations tied directly to computed placements rather than vague statements.

Zoltar, as described, combines calculation libraries and standard astronomical data to generate technical astrological output and matching interpretations. The module is presented as an engineered divination engine within the Hermes skills ecosystem.

Additional divination features in Hermes

Hermes includes additional divination features beyond Zoltar, covering daily horoscopes, Tarot, I-Ching, and numerology. “Daily horoscopes pull live from the Ohmanda API, a free endpoint returning professionally written daily readings per sign.” Tarot functionality draws from a structured 78-card dataset in the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition and supports single-card draws, three-card Past/Present/Future spreads, and the full 10-position Celtic Cross, with each card linked to its traditional meaning rather than offering vague summaries. These modes rely on established libraries and datasets and present specific card meanings or readings rather than generic statements.

“I-Ching uses a Python implementation of the coin-casting method, returns the hexagram by number and name, and interprets the “Judgment” and “Image” texts for that specific hexagram—not generic ‘change is coming’ wisdom.” Numerology runs the full Pythagorean system and computes Life Path, Expression, Soul Urge, Personality, Birthday, and Maturity numbers, with all values calculated and interpreted from scratch. Each of these features performs deterministic calculations or dataset lookups to produce concrete outputs and cited meanings instead of broad commentary. These divination capabilities are described as part of the six modes mentioned earlier and are presented separately from the Zoltar natal-chart details.

Hermes skills combine serious technical workflow automation—such as GitHub PR workflows, research pipelines, and developer operations—with sophisticated divination tools including Zoltar’s calculation-driven astrology and modules for Tarot, I-Ching, daily horoscopes, and numerology. These capabilities are not typical skills and span both engineering workflows and esoteric functions. Together they underscore the innovative, multifaceted design of Hermes.