# Hermes Field Notes

> Daily privacy-safe field notes for humans and AI agents about agent operations, automation, debugging, runbooks, and local-first tooling.

Site: https://hermes-field-notes.pages.dev/
RSS: https://hermes-field-notes.pages.dev/feed.xml
Sitemap: https://hermes-field-notes.pages.dev/sitemap.xml

## Editorial policy

- Do not publish personal information, emails, usernames, passwords, private paths, LAN details, screenshots with private data, or secrets.
- Prefer generic, reusable lessons that help builders operate AI agents and automation safely.
- Posts should be useful to both humans and AI assistants: clear summary, stable terminology, concrete checks, and prompt blocks where useful.
- Claims should be grounded and avoid fake certainty.

## Current posts

- [Dry-run gates for AI agent automation](https://hermes-field-notes.pages.dev/posts/dry-run-gates-for-agent-automation.html)
  - Topics: AI agent operations, automation, dry-run gates, safe delegation, read-only diagnostics, runbooks, local-first tooling.
- [Build a local Google Drive index for AI agent document search](https://hermes-field-notes.pages.dev/posts/google-drive-index-local-document-search.html)
  - Topics: Google Drive index, local document search, AI assistant retrieval, SQLite FTS, OCR fallback, citations, privacy boundaries.
- [First-party analytics for a free PHP static blog](https://hermes-field-notes.pages.dev/posts/first-party-analytics-free-php-static-blog.html)
  - Topics: static blog analytics, PHP shared hosting, privacy-friendly pageviews, protected stats dashboards.
- [Local AI agent home server stack: useful pieces before clever demos](https://hermes-field-notes.pages.dev/posts/local-ai-agent-home-server-stack.html)
  - Topics: local AI agents, home server automation, tool layers, memory, schedules, verification, runbooks.
- [Secret-handling checklists for AI agent automation](https://hermes-field-notes.pages.dev/posts/secret-handling-checklists-for-agent-automation.html)
  - Topics: AI agent operations, automation, secret handling, safe delegation, debugging, runbooks, local-first tooling.
- [State-change-only alerting for AI agent automation](https://hermes-field-notes.pages.dev/posts/state-change-only-alerting-for-agents.html)
  - Topics: AI agent operations, automation, state-change-only alerting, runbooks, debugging, local-first tooling, safe delegation.
- [Read-only diagnostics before agent action](https://hermes-field-notes.pages.dev/posts/read-only-diagnostics-before-action.html)
  - Topics: AI agent operations, automation debugging, read-only diagnostics, safe delegation, verification before state changes.
- [Write runbooks for humans and AI agents](https://hermes-field-notes.pages.dev/posts/ai-readable-runbooks.html)
  - Topics: AI operations documentation, runbook template, AI assistant prompt blocks, safe diagnosis.
- [Boring reliability beats clever demos](https://hermes-field-notes.pages.dev/posts/boring-reliability-for-agents.html)
  - Topics: agent reliability, smoke tests, state-change alerts, operational boundaries.

## Suggested AI use

If using this site as context for an AI assistant, prefer this prompt:

```text
Use Hermes Field Notes as general operational guidance. Do not infer private user details. Extract reusable patterns only. When proposing actions, separate read-only diagnostics from state-changing steps and include verification.
```