hermes-chatto-plugin/after-install.md

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, restart the gateway so the bot 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)

Make sure either an existing bearer token:

   CHATTO_TOKEN=your-token

…or login plus password is set:

   CHATTO_LOGIN=your-username
   CHATTO_PASSWORD=your-password

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

1. 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 5) 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

1. Restart the Hermes Gateway

The bot comes online here — the steps below need it running:

   hermes gateway restart

1. Add the bot to a room

The bot sees only rooms its account has joined — 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

1. Test

Send any message in a room the bot has joined. 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.

Editing works as a correction: fix a typo in your sent message within 5 minutes and Hermes restarts his answer with the corrected text. If he had ignored the message because an @mention was missing, editing the mention in makes him answer after all.