Common agents overview

Choose among Hermes, OpenClaw, WorkBuddy, and Agent Plugin, then keep installation, activation, Server startup, and diagnostics separate.

powercontext setup <host> installs and configures a host integration. It does not start the PowerContext Server. A completed setup is not proof that recall or writes can reach the Server.

This section starts with two general-purpose hosts that have first-class setup commands: Hermes and OpenClaw. The other two pages are WorkBuddy and Agent Plugin. They connect to the same Server, but their host contracts are different. Pick the host first; do not copy settings from one into the other.

The four layers

Treat installation as four separate layers:

1. Install the PowerContext CLI and Server package.
2. Set up and activate the host integration. Setup copies or links files; activation makes the host use them.
3. Run the Server as a separate process.
4. Diagnose the package, Server, and host integration at their own boundaries.

A local learning setup starts here:

uv tool install --force "powercontext[cli,server] @ git+https://github.com/oceanbase/powercontext.git@master"

powercontext server run

The default Server listens on 127.0.0.1:8000 and uses persistent SQLite. It accepts Source capture and explicit Memory operations. Model-backed extraction and managed Skill generation require separate inference configuration.

If you want to install both host integrations in one pass, run this in another terminal:

powercontext setup select \
  --host hermes \
  --host openclaw \
  --source oceanbase/powercontext \
  --ref master

--host is repeatable. Setup follows catalog order, continues after one selected host fails, and exits nonzero if any selected install fails. It never silently selects every host. Hermes still needs its generic memory-provider wizard afterward; OpenClaw setup selects the memory slot and restarts its Gateway.

Use the comparison table to choose a path, not as a substitute for the host tutorial. Hermes fits work that needs a broader PowerContext surface. OpenClaw exposes only Memory and applies stricter private-session admission. WorkBuddy and Agent Plugin have independent paths; adding either to setup select does not create the same automatic behavior.

Hermes or OpenClaw?

The deciding difference is scope, not the number of checkmarks. Hermes exposes more PowerContext operations; OpenClaw narrows the surface to Memory and applies its own session-admission rules.

Capability	Hermes	OpenClaw
Minimum host version	Version-gated: Hermes Agent >=0.20.4	Version-gated: OpenClaw >=2026.8.1-beta.2; Node 24.15+ is recommended for that host release
Installed pieces	MemoryProvider plus /pc command companion	Linked memory-powercontext plugin in the memory slot
Activation after setup	Run generic hermes memory setup, select PowerContext, then restart Hermes	Setup enables the plugin, selects the memory slot, updates the allowlist, and restarts the Gateway
Automatic recall	Yes	Yes
Automatic capture	Completed visible user/assistant turn by default	Latest eligible user prompt only; never the full transcript
Explicit Memory surface	Search, exact get, remember, revise, retire, prepare, capture, list, changes, Flush, and stats	Exactly five tools: search, get, store, revise, and retire
Other PowerContext planes	Handoff, Experience, Skill, external Skill, Candidate Review, workstream, and trace operations	Unsupported: no Handoff, Review, Experience, or Skill operations
Scope	Explicit configuration, then Workstream binding, then profile/user fallback	Agent scope, or agent-plus-project scope; project mode still contains agent ID
Conversation eligibility	No group/incognito gate supplied by this integration	Explicit group/channel and incognito are excluded; missing metadata may fall back to session-key heuristics
Slash commands	/pc and /powercontext; Gateway slash calls fail closed without caller context	No matching slash-command surface

Hermes is the broader PowerContext client. OpenClaw deliberately exposes only the Memory plane and applies a stricter session-privacy gate.

Activation is not Server startup

For Hermes, setup installs two plugins but does not select PowerContext as the active memory provider. Finish activation with:

hermes memory setup

Choose PowerContext, complete the provider settings, and restart Hermes. On Hermes 0.20.4, do not use hermes memory setup powercontext: that shortcut selects the provider without opening its configuration wizard.

OpenClaw setup does more host-side work. It builds the plugin with pnpm, installs it with --link --force, enables it, selects plugins.slots.memory, appends the five tools to tools.alsoAllow, and restarts the Gateway. It still does not run PowerContext Server.

Minimal verification

Run package and Server checks separately from host checks:

powercontext doctor
powercontext ready
powercontext capabilities

powercontext doctor hermes
powercontext doctor openclaw

These commands answer different questions:

Command	Boundary
powercontext doctor	Package, Server liveness, and Server readiness; it does not scan agent hosts
powercontext ready	Runtime, database, and inference readiness
powercontext capabilities	Server features that are currently enabled
powercontext doctor <host>	One host CLI and that integration’s installation state; a missing host fails
powercontext doctor integrations	Read-only matrix for the seven first-class hosts; an absent optional host is missing, not a failure by itself

doctor hermes checks the provider and command companion, but not active-provider selection, provider configuration, Server reachability, or a recall round trip. doctor openclaw checks that the plugin reports enabled, loaded, and selected for the memory slot. It does not check host version, endpoint, Gateway token, Server reachability, tool allowlist entries, or a real recall/capture round trip.

There is also one aggregate-report edge case: doctor integrations currently drops Hermes’s command_plugin result. Use doctor hermes when that companion matters.

Installation, activation, and runtime are separate states. A copied plugin can still be inactive; an active plugin can still point at a stopped Server; and a healthy Server says nothing about which Scope the host selected. Diagnose those states in that order, because each has a different repair.

Execution flow

Automatic recall and capture are auxiliary paths and normally fail open. Explicit durable writes must report failure to the host. A captured Source is not automatically a Memory: extraction may be disabled, may fail, or may produce no change.

Negative paths to test

• Stop the Server. The host’s ordinary task should continue without recalled context, while an explicit write reports an error.
• Use an old host version. Setup should reject it before installation.
• Complete setup but skip activation. Hermes should not be described as ready merely because its plugin directories exist.
• Run doctor integrations on a machine without either host. Missing optional CLIs should be reported without turning the aggregate command into a failure.
• Switch Scope and search for data from the old Scope. No entry should cross the boundary.
• Put a secret in captured text. Neither integration provides complete DLP; privacy policy must prevent the capture rather than relying on heuristic filtering.

WorkBuddy and Agent Plugin

These two pages belong in this chapter, but they are not in the first-class catalog used by setup select and doctor integrations.

Capability	WorkBuddy	Agent Plugin
Automatic event	UserPromptSubmit	None
Injection	additionalContext	None; MCP only
Prompt capture	Yes	No
Explicit interface	MCP	MCP
Handoff	MCP + Skill	MCP + Skill
Permission	Host-gated	Host-gated
Managed Skill export	Unsupported	Unsupported
Real-host E2E	Not validated (service-chain only)	Not validated (package contract only)
Catalog	Dedicated setup / doctor; not first-class	No setup / doctor

Do not describe WorkBuddy as a setup select member. Do not describe Agent Plugin as a host that prepares context automatically. The verification contracts are on WorkBuddy and Agent Plugin.

Other names you may encounter

Bub is narrower still in this checkout: it appears as a package/README integration path, not as a first-class host setup and diagnostics entry. LangChain, LangGraph, and Pydantic AI are framework integrations, not hosts in this catalog.

Current limits

• Setup and activation never replace Server supervision. Run the Server under the process manager appropriate to your environment.
• A doctor result is a bounded installation diagnostic, not an end-to-end proof.
• Automatic capture does not prove extraction or commit.
• Full-capability generation, embedding, reranking, and managed Skill generation need explicit inference configuration.
• A real Hermes/OpenClaw host-process end-to-end run is Not validated by these pages; the claims here come from current implementation and tests.

Completion checklist

• The host meets its minimum version.
• PowerContext CLI/Server installation is separate from host setup.
• Hermes activation or OpenClaw memory-slot selection is complete.
• The Server is running at the configured endpoint.
• doctor, ready, and capabilities pass at the Server boundary.
• The single-host doctor passes, with its documented limits understood.
• Scope isolation has a negative test.
• Server outage leaves automatic paths fail-open and explicit writes visible.
• Capture policy is acceptable before autoCapture or capture_turns remains enabled.

Continue with Hermes for the full provider surface, or OpenClaw for the narrower Memory-only path. Use the matching page for WorkBuddy or the portable Agent Plugin.

Let the agent extend itself covers Review and managed export. Hermes, OpenClaw, WorkBuddy, and Agent Plugin cannot export. After Review, switch to Codex or Claude Code.