Daily briefings via Telegram

Problem: I want a morning summary of my local projects without opening the laptop. The agent runs offline; Telegram delivers the result to my phone.

Setup: Hermes + Ollama on laptop, Telegram gateway, cron job.

Architecture

9:00 AM cron trigger
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Hermes (local) scans ~/Projects/FDE/
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Ollama generates summary
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Telegram bot sends to phone

Internet is used for Telegram delivery only. All inference and file scanning is local.

Step 1: Connect Telegram

hermes gateway setup

Pick Telegram in the wizard and paste a bot token from @BotFather. Note your chat ID.

Step 2: Create the cron job

Create it from the CLI (or just ask Hermes in natural language). Delivery is set with --deliver, not a config block:

hermes cron create "0 8 * * 1-5" \
  "Morning briefing. Scan ~/Projects/FDE/ for: 1) git repos with uncommitted changes (name + file count), 2) docs projects: run npm run build and note pass/fail, 3) disk space on the home volume. Format as a short bullet list, max 15 lines, starting with today's date." \
  --name "morning-briefing" --deliver telegram

To target a specific chat instead of your Telegram home channel, use --deliver telegram:<chat-id>. Test it once before trusting the schedule:

hermes cron list                # find the job id
hermes cron run <id>            # fire it now

Step 3: Keep services running

# Terminal 1: Ollama with model loaded
OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH=65536 OLLAMA_KEEP_ALIVE=-1 ollama serve

# Terminal 2: Hermes gateway (keeps the scheduler alive too)
hermes gateway run        # foreground; or `hermes gateway install` for a background service

For always-on setups, use launchd (macOS) or systemd (Linux) to auto-start both.

Example output I receive on Telegram

Thu 25 Jun 2026

• claude-mastery-docs: build passed, 2 uncommitted files
• hermes-mastery-docs: build passed, clean working tree
• Disk: 142 GB free (71%)

Variations

• Weekly docs audit instead of daily (less load on local model).
• Personal notes scan: summarize new files in ~/Documents/notes/.
• Backup check: verify specific folders exist and report sizes.

Tips

• Schedule during idle hours (local inference takes 1-3 minutes).
• Keep prompts bounded ("max 15 lines") to avoid huge Telegram messages.
• Test the prompt manually in CLI before enabling cron.
• If the laptop sleeps, cron won't fire. Use a desktop/server that stays awake, or trigger on wake.

Hybrid note

This is the one use case that's mostly offline but needs network for Telegram. The intelligence and data stay local.