Hermes Agent in Russia: install it and connect Claude, GPT and DeepSeek without a VPN or a foreign card
Hermes Agent is Nous Research's open-source AI agent (MIT): it runs in the terminal and as a bot in Telegram, Discord or Slack. Models are usually connected through Nous Portal or directly through Anthropic and OpenAI — but the former is paid via Stripe and the latter don't serve Russia. The RuAPI plugin from the official Hermes catalog gives you Claude, GPT, DeepSeek and Gemini on one key, paid in USDT.
$ hermes plugins install ruapi
$ export RUAPI_API_KEY="sk-..."
$ hermes --provider ruapi --model claude-sonnet-5-5The plugin needs Hermes 0.21.5 or newer. In PowerShell, set the key with $env:RUAPI_API_KEY = "sk-...". Without the plugin, use a Custom endpoint with the address https://www.ruapi.ai/v1.
Why connect Hermes Agent through RuAPI from Russia
Nous Portal is paid via Stripe.
A paid Nous Portal subscription costs $20 to $200 a month and credits are bought in $10–200 top-ups, paid via Stripe (portal.nousresearch.com, Nov 1, 2026) — and Russian bank cards don't work abroad. A RuAPI balance is topped up in USDT from 5 USDT, and you pay only for tokens.
Anthropic and OpenAI don't serve Russia.
Russia isn't on Anthropic's or OpenAI's supported-country lists (anthropic.com/supported-countries, developers.openai.com, Nov 1, 2026), so Hermes' built-in Anthropic and OpenAI providers need a key you can't officially get from Russia. With RuAPI, model requests go to www.ruapi.ai — no VPN.
The RuAPI plugin is in the official catalog.
hermes plugins install ruapi adds two providers on one key: ruapi — Claude over the native Anthropic API, with prompt caching and Hermes' thinking settings; ruapi-openai — GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen, GLM and Kimi.
How to connect Hermes Agent to RuAPI: 3 steps
Hermes installs with one command and the plugin with another; one RuAPI key covers both providers.
Get a RuAPI account instead of a Nous Portal subscription
Sign up at www.ruapi.ai with email, Google or Yandex. Top up in USDT from 5 USDT; USDT can be bought with rubles via SBP — guide: docs.ruapi.ai/en/buy-usdt. Foreign-issued cards are accepted too.
The $0.05 new accounts usually get right away covers a few agent replies: claude-haiku-5-5, deepseek-flash and gpt-6-luna work on it. The other models unlock after your first top-up.
Create a key for Hermes
Console → API Keys → "Create API key". If Hermes will answer in Telegram or run on a schedule, give the key a spending limit: the agent works without you, and the key won't spend more than the amount you set.
Install Hermes and the RuAPI plugin
- Linux, macOS and WSL2: curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash. Windows: in PowerShell, iex (irm https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.ps1), or the Hermes Desktop installer from the Nous Research site.
- Install the plugin with hermes plugins install ruapi and save the key — in the RUAPI_API_KEY variable or through the hermes setup wizard. For a bot running in the background the wizard is safer, since the key then doesn't depend on an open terminal.
- Run hermes model and pick RuAPI for Claude or RuAPI (OpenAI-compatible) for the other models. A Telegram bot is set up with hermes gateway setup and hermes gateway start.
Full guide with troubleshooting: docs.ruapi.ai/en/integrations/hermes
What to set in Hermes
RuAPI plugin
hermes plugins install ruapi
key: RUAPI_API_KEY
Providers
Claude: --provider ruapi
others: --provider ruapi-openai
Without the plugin
hermes model → Custom endpoint
Base URL: https://www.ruapi.ai/v1
Model prices for Hermes Agent
What the models people most often run in Hermes cost, in USD per 1M tokens, from the pricing page. No subscription: only the tokens you use are charged to your RuAPI balance.
| model | input $/M | output $/M |
|---|---|---|
| claude-sonnet-5-5 | $2.40 cache read $0.12 | $12.00 |
| claude-haiku-5-5 | $0.12 cache read $0.0120 >100K: $0.60 | $0.60 >100K: $3.00 |
| claude-opus-5-5 | $4.80 cache read $0.24 | $24.00 |
| deepseek-flash | $0.17 cache read $0.0120 | $1.44 |
| deepseek-v4-pro | $1.58 cache read $0.0600 | $4.75 |
| gpt-5.6-terra | $2.40 cache read $0.24 >272K: $4.80 | $14.40 >272K: $21.60 |
| gpt-5.4-mini | $0.90 cache read $0.0900 | $5.40 |
| kimi-k3.1-pro | $2.40 cache read $0.24 | $12.00 |
Columns: input is new input tokens, “cache read” is input tokens served from the prompt cache, output is the model’s reply. Every Hermes request carries the system prompt, the tool descriptions and the chat history; for Claude through the ruapi provider the repeated part is read from the cache and costs several times less. The “est. effective w/ cache” estimate is on the pricing page.
The grey “>100K” line is the vendor’s rate for long prompts: if a prompt goes over the threshold, the whole request is billed at that rate.
Hermes with RuAPI vs. Nous Portal
| Hermes + RuAPI | Nous Portal | |
|---|---|---|
| Paying from Russia | USDT from 5 USDT; foreign-issued cards accepted too | Via Stripe; Russian bank cards don't work abroad |
| How you pay | Only for the tokens you use | Free — free models only; Plus $20, Super $100, Ultra $200 a month with limits; API keys use credits |
| How to connect | hermes plugins install ruapi or a Custom endpoint | hermes setup --portal, OAuth sign-in |
Nous Portal information is from portal.nousresearch.com and the Hermes docs (hermes-agent.nousresearch.com), checked Nov 1, 2026.