Add Disposable Email to Hermes Agent

Hermes Agent runs autonomously on your own machine — executing code, browsing, managing files — which means it runs into email verification constantly. It has had a built-in MCP client since v0.2.0, so giving it an inbox of its own is a single config block.

Setup

1Open your Hermes config at ~/.hermes/config.yaml.

2Add the server under mcp_servers:

mcp_servers:
  myagentinbox:
    url: "https://myagentinbox.com/mcp"

3Verify the connection. From a shell:

hermes mcp test myagentinbox

Testing 'myagentinbox'...
Transport: HTTP -> https://myagentinbox.com/mcp
Auth: none
✓ Connected (2686ms)
✓ Tools discovered: 4

  create_inbox          Create a disposable email inbox that expires in 24 hour...
  check_inbox           Check for messages in a disposable inbox. Returns a lis...
  read_message          Read the full content of a specific email message inclu...
  download_attachment   Download an email attachment. Returns images as base64,...

hermes mcp list shows the server in a table, and inside a running session /reload-mcp picks up config edits without a restart.

The four tools, and what to call them

• create_inbox — a fresh @myagentinbox.com address, 24 h TTL
• check_inbox — senders, subjects, previews
• read_message — the full body of one message
• download_attachment — images as base64, text inline, binary as URL

Hermes namespaces MCP tools to avoid collisions, and which form you use depends on where you are:

• Config filters (tools.include / tools.exclude) take the bare names above.
• The hermes tools CLI uses server:tool notation — myagentinbox:check_inbox.
• In the model's tool registry they appear prefixed as mcp_myagentinbox_check_inbox. You rarely need that form in a prompt; Hermes selects tools during normal reasoning.

Try it

Sign up for the Vercel newsletter with a throwaway email address.
Wait for the welcome message, then tell me the unsubscribe link.

Hermes creates an inbox, uses the address in the signup flow, polls until mail arrives, and reads the link back. No handoff to you in the middle.

Two settings worth tuning

Leave parallel tool calls off. Hermes can run a server's tools concurrently with supports_parallel_tool_calls, but inbox creation is capped at 1 per 5 minutes per IP. Concurrent create_inbox calls will trip that limit rather than go faster. Leave it at the default.

Give polling room. Verification mail usually lands in 5–30 seconds. If you see tool calls time out while waiting, raise the per-server timeout:

mcp_servers:
  myagentinbox:
    url: "https://myagentinbox.com/mcp"
    timeout: 60
    connect_timeout: 10

Tell the agent to back off between checks too — something like "wait 5 seconds between inbox checks, give up after 2 minutes" keeps it inside the 20 reads/minute budget instead of burning it on a tight loop.

Narrowing what Hermes can call

If you would rather expose only part of the surface, Hermes supports per-server filtering. To grant read-only access, for example:

mcp_servers:
  myagentinbox:
    url: "https://myagentinbox.com/mcp"
    tools:
      include: [check_inbox, read_message]

Use unprefixed names inside include. If both include and exclude are present, include wins.

Limits

• Inbox creation: 1 per 5 minutes and 10 per day, per IP
• API reads: 20 per minute per IP
• Inbox lifetime: 24 hours, then everything is deleted
• Max email size: 10 MB