Hermes Conduit

Privacy Policy

Effective November 6, 2026

This policy explains how Hermes Conduit handles information in the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch apps (including CarPlay, widgets, Live Activities, Shortcuts and the share extension), the optional Hermes Conduit Notifier plugin that runs on your Hermes host, and the optional Conduit push relay used to deliver Apple Push Notification service (APNs) notifications, calls and Apple Watch traffic.

Summary

Information stored on your device

Conduit stores on your device the dashboard addresses you add, dashboard session information, app preferences, notification and call registration credentials, end-to-end encryption keys, profile pictures, your Chats lists and recent conversations (so the app opens straight to them while it connects), messages waiting to be sent, items you shared into Conduit that haven't been sent yet, and cached attachments. Credentials and keys are kept in the iOS Keychain, available to this device only after it is first unlocked. Optional Face ID or Touch ID protects saved credentials; the check happens in iOS and Conduit never receives biometric data. Each dashboard's saved chats remain until you sign out of it, remove it, or use Delete saved chats in Settings.

Diagnostic information Conduit keeps, such as voice call timelines, the Apple Watch call log, chat traces and device reports iOS provides to the app, stays on your device. It leaves your device only if you copy or share it yourself, or send a crash or freeze report or a chat trace as described below. In Conduit's system logs, web addresses are replaced with a placeholder.

After Conduit crashes or freezes, iOS gives it a report about what happened, and Conduit asks you once whether to send it to its developer. Only if you tap Send does it go, over HTTPS to the developer's Conduit relay, even if you run your own relay for notifications. A report holds the app's call stacks and exception and termination codes as iOS wrote them, Conduit's version and build, the iOS version and the device model. It holds no messages, voice, file names or account details, and is not linked to your notification registration. A report can include Conduit's chat trace: what the chat screen did just before, such as scrolling, rows arriving, sizes and timings, with no message text, titles or file names. You can also send a chat trace on its own from Settings > Connection > Diagnostics & logs, for example after a chat jumps or stops responding; it goes the same way and is kept the same way. The relay keeps reports for at most 90 days; only the developer can read them, to find and fix the fault. Your IP address is used only for rate limits, as for other relay requests.

Your Hermes dashboard and gateway

When you sign in, send a message, load a chat, change a model or setting, run a command, upload an attachment or profile picture, or use Shortcuts, widgets, Siri, CarPlay or Ask Hermes about my screen, Conduit communicates with the dashboard and gateway that you configured. Sign-in uses your dashboard's own login, including any single sign-on provider it offers, in a Safari window. The operator of that Hermes installation (you, or a host such as a hosted Hermes service) controls the storage, processing, retention and security of that data, including saved voice call transcripts. Your Hermes agent sends what it works on to the AI model provider it is configured to use, under that provider's terms. If you use Pulse, a follow-up on something said in a chat can search the web through the search provider your Hermes agent uses, under that provider's terms: at most 10 searches a day, never with a web address in them. If you connect to a gateway operated by someone else, their privacy terms also apply.

Voice

Conduit uses the microphone only while you use voice, a voice call or a wake phrase you turned on in the app.

Optional push notifications, calls and Lock Screen progress

If you enable notifications, Conduit sends the following information to the Conduit notification relay:

Notification previews control the title and body shown in the APNs alert, and Chat names shows the chat's title and profile without the reply's text; they do not control what the plugin sends to the relay. Decision cards have a separate preference, enabled by default, that controls structured decision content in the APNs payload. Turning off previews or decision cards does not prevent that content from reaching the relay.

To limit content before it leaves your Hermes gateway, enable the plugin's profile-specific redaction setting with hermes conduit-push redact on. Redaction removes notification title and body text, removes the tool category from Lock Screen progress, and replaces approval descriptions and clarify questions with generic text. Routing identifiers still reach the relay. Choice labels also remain for both card types: approval labels are limited to the fixed once, session, always, and deny vocabulary, while clarify labels remain as supplied. Answers you submit for clarify cards are sent to the relay for the gateway to retrieve, even when redaction is enabled.

When end-to-end encryption is on for a pairing (Conduit turns it on by itself with Hermes Conduit Notifier 0.5 or later), Conduit creates a secret for that pairing on your device and sends it to your Hermes gateway over your own dashboard connection, never through the relay. The plugin then encrypts notification titles, bodies, session identifiers, profile names, decision content, call details, a room invite's name and sender, and the room a turn's notification opens with it, and your device encrypts clarify answers. A notification that can't be encrypted goes out without its content, keeping only the identifiers that route it, a room's among them. The relay and Apple can't read that content; they still process the event type, opaque identifiers, a keyed thread token, timing, size and how much a Pulse notification, or one Hermes marked quiet, may interrupt. A pairing that has turned on encryption does not send unencrypted content again. Lock Screen progress and the notice that a call stopped ringing are not encrypted and carry only the information listed above.

The relay uses this information solely to authenticate paired installations, enforce notification preferences, prevent duplicate delivery, relay clarify answers and Apple Watch traffic to your gateway, troubleshoot failures, and send notifications, calls and Live Activity updates through APNs. Apple processes the device tokens and notification payloads under Apple's applicable privacy terms.

Optional Apple Health sharing

Conduit can share Apple Health data with your Hermes gateway so your agent can read it. It is off until you turn it on, and you choose the categories (activity, heart, sleep, workouts, body measurements, vitals, fitness) and how far back to share. Conduit reads Health data only with your permission in the system Health prompt and never writes to Health.

Optional location sharing and maps

Conduit can share your location with your Hermes gateway so your agent can use it, for example to tell how far you are from an appointment, follow rules you set for places such as home or work, or not call you at places you choose. It is off until you turn it on, with two separate settings: sharing while you talk to your agent (a location when you send a message or start a voice call) and sharing in the background (arriving at and leaving places you save, and significant moves). For each you choose the precision: place names only, approximate area, or precise.

Optional Calendar, Reminders, Focus, phone status, contacts and alarms

Conduit can share your calendars, reminders, which Focus is on, a snapshot of your phone (battery, charging, Low Power Mode, CarPlay, audio route, network type and motion activity such as walking or driving), the alarms and timers it set for you, and contacts you pick one by one, with your Hermes gateway so your agent can use them. Each is off until you turn it on, and you choose which calendars and lists, how far back and ahead, and whether event notes and attendees are included. Conduit reads calendars, reminders and motion only with your permission in the system prompts. Conduit never reads your whole address book, only the people you pick: it receives the contacts you choose in the system contact picker, with the relationship you type. If you also allow Contacts access (choosing only some contacts is enough), Conduit reads those same picked people again when it syncs, so edits you make to them reach your Hermes, and reads no one else.

Optional events from Shortcuts automations

Conduit's Log to Hermes action lets a Shortcuts automation you set up send an event to your Hermes gateway, so your agent can look it up later: for example a notification from an app you pick, a message, an email, a Wallet payment, an NFC tag or a sound the phone hears. Nothing is sent until you add the action to an automation, and an event carries only what that automation passes to it (who it's from, a title, details, an amount and what triggered it). Because these can be other people's notifications, messages and emails, they may contain other people's words.

Other connections

Retention and deletion

On-device information remains until you remove it, sign out, disable the related feature, or uninstall the app. Notification registrations remain active until notifications are disabled, the registration is invalidated, or deletion is requested; when the relay is full, it removes the longest-inactive registrations first. Disabling notifications prevents further delivery and revokes the app's local notification credential. Short-lived pairing codes and device token checks expire after ten minutes, and event identifiers used to prevent duplicate delivery expire after approximately 24 hours. Clarify decision records, including questions, choices, and submitted answers, expire after approximately two hours. Call rings and Lock Screen progress are kept only in the relay's memory (a ring's mute and end for as long as the call lasts, at most four hours), and Apple Watch grants end with the call, after at most 30 minutes. When the relay processes state, it removes expired records from its in-memory state; an expired record may remain in the saved file until a later state update rewrites that file.

To request deletion of notification relay information, contact support@milim.dev. We may ask for limited installation information to locate the registration. Information stored by your Hermes gateway must be deleted through that gateway's operator, and information sent to a voice or AI model provider through that provider.

Sharing

Information is shared only with service providers necessary to provide the requested function, including Apple for APNs delivery and infrastructure providers used to operate the notification relay and this support site, and the voice providers you choose to call. Information may also be disclosed when required by law, to protect users or the service, or as part of a business transfer subject to appropriate safeguards.

Security

Conduit uses HTTPS and secure WebSocket connections when communicating with configured services; plain connections are allowed only to addresses on your local network or private tunnels such as Tailscale. Notification credentials are randomly generated, scoped, revocable, and stored as cryptographic hashes on the relay where applicable. End-to-end encryption uses ChaCha20-Poly1305 with keys derived by HKDF. Its keys are set up over your dashboard connection, so they are only as private as that connection: use HTTPS or a private tunnel such as Tailscale, since someone who can intercept a plain connection while the keys are set up could read what is encrypted with them. No method of transmission or storage can guarantee absolute security.

Children

Hermes Conduit is a developer and productivity tool and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

International processing

The notification relay, the voice providers you choose and their service providers may process information in countries other than your own. By enabling notifications or a voice provider, you request this processing to provide the feature.

Changes

This policy may be updated as Conduit changes. The effective date above will be revised when material changes are published.

Contact

For privacy questions or requests, email support@milim.dev. For general help, visit the support page.