LINCHPIN
A strategy practice and product studio for communications, funding, policy, and practical digital tools.
Visit LINCHPINAbout the project
About Bot Cabinet
A practical starting point for people who want to use Hermes Bots. Bot Cabinet is an independent community project from LINCHPIN and AI for the Real World. Its first collection, the Hermes Bot Registry, provides starter roles, step-by-step use cases, setup guidance, and clear information about public Community Registry projects.
Independent community project
The person behind Bot Cabinet
Strategy, writing, and practical AI
He is a strategist, writer, journalist, and builder with roughly three decades of experience helping organizations make sense of difficult choices. He founded LINCHPIN, where the practice advises and the studio builds.
He also created AI for the Real World, which helps nontechnical leaders apply AI to their work through seminars, workshops, examples, and practical tools.
He publishes Open Source, a five-minute Monday briefing on the handful of developments in AI that are most likely to change a decision someone will make next.
Questions about Bot Cabinet, LINCHPIN, or AI for the Real World can be sent to damon@linchpin.studio.
His Hermes profiles cover distinct working roles such as research, writing, editing, planning, software, learning, and operations. He created the Hermes Bot Registry so other people could begin with understandable role templates and see the setup, limits, and review status of public profiles.
Why the Hermes Bot Registry began
A Grok Bot usage cap prompted the first question
“I reached the usage cap on my $300-a-month SuperGrok Heavy subscription quickly. I could wait three days to use Grok Bot again or pay more. I already used Hermes Agent, so I wondered whether anyone had created a systematic way to help people understand and use the new Hermes Bot feature. That question became the Registry.”
Related work
AI for the Real World
Practical AI education, workshops, examples, and tools for nontechnical leaders.
Visit the seminar Read Open SourceBot Cabinet
A free home for The Cabinet’s Hermes Bot starters, Bot Lab, Bot Crews workflows, Field Manual guides, and selected Community Registry projects.
Open The CabinetHow Bot Cabinet was built
Several AI tools helped build Bot Cabinet
He began the prototype in Hermes Agent with DeepSeek and other models. He later moved the project to Codex for additional research, design, engineering, and testing.
“I built the first prototype inside Hermes Agent, working across DeepSeek and several other models. Those models did an excellent job building robust scaffolding. When it was time to turn that prototype into a finished public product, I brought it into Codex—one of the cleanest and most elegant coding environments I have used.”
“I use the tools that best fit the work. I lean toward open source because it gives people more choices and lets them understand how a system works. Hermes made the first prototype possible quickly. Codex helped me continue the research, design, engineering, and testing.”
— Damon Gardenhire
Initial prototypeHermes Agent + DeepSeek and other models
Current siteCodex research, design, engineering, and testing
More from LINCHPIN
Explore LINCHPIN’s strategy, AI, and product work
These links lead to LINCHPIN’s main site, AI work, product studio, and practical workshop for leaders.
Why Bot Cabinet exists
Practical help for building and using Hermes Bots
Hermes makes it straightforward to create named Bots with continuing conversations, distinct roles, memory, tools, and histories. People still need clear examples that connect those capabilities to everyday work.
The Hermes Bot Registry organizes starter roles, step-by-step workflows, setup guidance, and selected outside projects. Each listing explains the job, the required access, and the current review and test status.