Migrate from OpenClaw to Hermes Agent in 10 minutes: Official command practical guide

Migrating from OpenClaw to Hermes is actually much simpler than most people expect. The Hermes team clearly had OpenClaw users in mind when they built the migration tool.

Just run this one command:

hermes claw migrate

It will automatically detect your OpenClaw installation, pull over all your data, and walk you through the whole process step by step. No need to manually copy files or mess around with folders.

Even better, the migration is completely safe and non-destructive. It only reads from OpenClaw — it won’t change or delete anything. You can keep using OpenClaw normally until you’re fully ready to switch.

Three things to check before migrating

Make sure you’ve already installed Hermes (see the official docs), your OpenClaw data is in the default location ~/.openclaw, and you have your API keys ready.

If OpenClaw is installed somewhere else, you can specify the path later with the --source flag.

Step 1: Do a dry-run first (strongly recommended)

Before doing the actual migration, run a preview to see exactly what will be moved:

hermes claw migrate --dry-run

It will show you a clear list: SOUL.md (personality), MEMORY.md, USER.md, all your skills, API keys, message channel settings, etc. Take a good look and make sure everything looks right.

If your OpenClaw is in a custom location, use:

hermes claw migrate --dry-run --source /path/to/your/openclaw

Step 2: Run the real migration

Once the preview looks good, go ahead with the actual migration:

hermes claw migrate

It will show the preview again and ask for confirmation. After you say yes, it starts importing. If there’s a conflict (for example, you already have a SOUL.md in Hermes), it will ask you what to do — keep the existing one, overwrite it, or compare them first.

Some useful options:

# Skip sensitive stuff like API keys (only migrate config and memories)
hermes claw migrate --preset user-data

# Full migration including keys, no confirmation needed
hermes claw migrate --preset full --yes

# Automatically overwrite when skills conflict
hermes claw migrate --overwrite

After migration, your old skills will be placed in ~/.hermes/skills/openclaw-imports/. Run /skills in Hermes to check if they loaded properly.

Step 3: Cleanup (optional)

Once you’ve confirmed everything is working well in Hermes, you can run:

hermes claw cleanup

This simply renames the old OpenClaw folder to something like .pre-migration/ so the two don’t get mixed up. It doesn’t delete anything — you can always restore it later if needed.

Automatic migration during first setup

If you haven’t set up Hermes yet, just run hermes setup. The wizard will automatically detect if ~/.openclaw exists and ask if you want to migrate. If you say yes, the whole migration happens inside the setup process — no need to run the migrate command separately.

Common situations you might run into

After migrating skills, you’ll usually need to start a new session or run /skills to reload them.

Complex skills (especially ones with lots of conditional logic) may need a quick manual check after migration. The tool will flag which ones need attention. Simple single-step skills usually work right away.

API key migration only handles six common secure credential types. Anything else will show as “skipped” in the report — you’ll need to add those manually in Hermes. If your OpenClaw keys used indirect methods like source: "file" or source: "exec", they won’t migrate automatically. You can add them with:

hermes config set providers.openai.api_key "your-key-here"

Cron/scheduled tasks are not migrated automatically. After switching, use hermes cron list to see what’s there, then recreate your schedules manually.

Safe transition strategy (recommended)

I don’t recommend flipping the switch from OpenClaw to Hermes in one go, especially if you have active workflows. A much safer approach is to run both in parallel for 3–7 days.

Let Hermes run in CLI mode first to test all the migrated skills and workflows. Keep OpenClaw handling your Telegram/Discord/Feishu messages during this time. Once you’re confident Hermes is stable, simply change the bot token in your messaging apps to point to Hermes instead. That’s it.

# Test migrated skills
hermes

# Inside the CLI, run:
 /skills

# Then manually test your important workflows

Only do the final switch after everything checks out. This gradual approach is way less stressful than a big-bang migration.