## Chatto Plugin Installed ✅

During installation you were prompted for the Chatto connection details, and
your answers were written to `~/.hermes/.env`. Next steps: review that
configuration — including who the bot is allowed to answer, which is off by
default — restart the gateway so it comes online, then bring it into a room
and try it out.

**Review your `~/.hermes/.env` or `config.yaml`.** Secrets (passwords, tokens)
belong in `~/.hermes/.env` only — never in `config.yaml`; non-secret settings
can live in either file. Environment variables take precedence over
`config.yaml` entries.

1. Connection details (required)

   Your Chatto bot token (an API key like `cht_BK_...`):

   ```
   CHATTO_TOKEN=your-bot-key
   ```

   Generate one in Chatto under **Settings → Bot Accounts**.

   Without `CHATTO_BASE_URL` the plugin connects to the public ChattoHQ server
   (`https://chat.chatto.run`). To use your own server:

   ```
   CHATTO_BASE_URL=https://chat.example.com
   ```

2. Home channel (optional)

   Where cron job output and notifications get delivered when there is no
   conversation context to reply into — the default outbound target, nothing
   more. It follows the same participation rules as any room: a silent room
   stays quiet, so list it in one of the mention room lists (see step 6) too
   if the bot should also converse in it. If unset, context-less deliveries
   have no Chatto target and are not sent — set one if you plan to use
   Hermes' proactive output:

   ```
   CHATTO_HOME_CHANNEL=ROOM_ID_HERE
   ```

3. Who the bot answers (required unless you open it up)

   The bot replies only to the Chatto users you name here. If the installer
   left this empty, it answers nobody — not even you. Put your own Chatto
   user ID in (the `U…` string identifying your account, not your login
   name — see README.md, "How to find a user ID", for how to get one):

   ```
   CHATTO_ALLOWED_USERS=UYourUserIDHere,AnotherUserID
   ```

   Each entry is matched exactly and case-sensitively, and must be a user
   ID — a login name in the list does not authorize anyone. To open the bot
   to every user on the server instead, use `CHATTO_ALLOW_ALL_USERS=true` —
   which hands all of them the agent's capabilities, including tool use, so
   keep that for a trusted, private server. Setting both is rejected as
   conflicting.

4. Restart the Hermes Gateway

   The bot comes online here, and it picks up everything above from `.env`
   right now — a change made after this restart counts only from the next
   one. The steps below need it running:

   ```bash
   hermes gateway restart
   ```

5. Add the bot to a room

   The bot can *see* more rooms than it has joined, but it answers and posts
   only in rooms its account is a member of. Membership lives on the Chatto
   server, survives gateway restarts, and nothing is joined silently on
   startup. Invite the bot account natively in Chatto, or DM it:

   ```
   /join ROOM_ID_HERE
   ```

6. Test

   Send any message in a room the bot has joined — as one of the users from
   step 3, since everyone else is ignored. DMs answer right away; every other
   room stays silent until you list it — in
   `CHATTO_REQUIRE_MENTION_ROOMS` (answers only when the message addresses
   the bot via `@name`, `@all` or `@here`) or `CHATTO_OPTIONAL_MENTION_ROOMS`
   (answers every message). The `/join` reply prints both lines ready to
   paste, with the room ID filled in.

   That is the first-run path done. Everything beyond answering a message —
   corrections by editing, the plugin tools, and server-side prerequisites such
   as message search — is in `README.md`.