Chatting with an AI is easy. Operating a long-lived agent is harder: browser sessions, credentials, updates, diagnostics, backups, and recovery all need a home. MangoTart packages that runtime into a dedicated computer while letting you choose the model provider and connected services.
The runtime lives on hardware you own
Hermes state, credentials, skills, and the browser profile sit on the device — in ~/.hermes/ and the local browser profile. Routine agent conversations are not copied to the MangoTart website just to run the agent. Model providers, messaging platforms, websites, external tools, support paths, and optional encrypted backup each have their own boundary. See the complete data flow.
No shared account to get banned
Cloud AI access is full of resold logins, shared API pools, and proxy "mirrors" — and the moment a provider flags one, everyone riding it goes dark at once. MangoTart connects your own account the official way: your existing ChatGPT subscription through OpenAI's own login (the same path Codex uses), or your own API key. There's no middleman account between you and the model to suspend, throttle, or nuke.
A computer can break. Your agent state can still have a recovery path.
If you enable cloud disaster backup, MangoTart periodically archives supported Hermes state, encrypts it on the device, and uploads the ciphertext. A new MangoTart can import that state with the backup file and password. Browser profiles are excluded, and recovery is not an uptime guarantee.
Keep your backup password
The backup password lives on the device and with you — the service does not store or return it. If you lose it, the encrypted backup cannot be recovered. Save it somewhere safe. Browser logins are not part of the backup, so sign in again after recovery.
The model account is not rented from MangoTart
The agent runtime is Hermes, open-source MIT-licensed software from Nous Research. You connect your own supported model provider; MangoTart does not operate a shared token pool. The device still contacts MangoTart services for registration, heartbeat, updates, support, and optional encrypted backup, so we do not describe it as an offline appliance.
Your data is yours to take
Changed your mind about the hardware but want to keep your agent? One click exports the whole thing — memory, skills, settings, chat history — as a standard Hermes backup. Import it into another MangoTart, or into any machine running open-source Hermes. No lock-in, no data held hostage.
Taking your data elsewhere
MangoTart-to-MangoTart migration is the supported path. Moving to other hardware is best-effort — Hermes is open source and runs in plenty of places, but the product promise covers migration between MangoTart devices. Your export also holds secrets in plain text (API keys, logins, chats), so treat the file like a password.
A real agent — and it gets sharper the more you use it
ChatGPT and Claude talk. Hermes does: it plans, uses tools, browses the web on your logged-in accounts, and runs tasks on a schedule — a full agent harness, not a chat box. It can also build reusable skills and memory from experience. It is a capable open-source agent runtime, and MangoTart gives it a maintained home.
Ready to set one up? See the quick start.