Busy Input Mode
The display.busy_input_mode config key controls what happens when you press Enter while the agent is working: Mode Behavior "interrupt" (default) Your message redirects the active turn. Model generation restarts with displayed reasoning and completed work preserved. A running foreground terminal command is moved to the background (not killed - you get a completion notification) so your message is read immediately; other running tools finish first "queue" Your message is silently queued and sent as the next turn after the agent finishes "steer" Your message is injected into the current run via /steer , arriving at the agent after the next tool call - no interrupt, no new turn "queue" mode prepares a separate follow-up turn. "steer" always waits for the next tool-result boundary. The default "interrupt" mode responds sooner during model generation while avoiding cancellation of a running tool; a long foreground terminal command (a build, a poller) is handed to the background so the agent sees your message right away instead of after the command exits. Use /stop when you want to cancel the turn and its foreground work. Unknown values fall back to "interrupt" . "steer" has two automati…
From the official Hermes Agent documentation.
# ~/.hermes/config.yaml
display:
busy_input_mode: "steer" # or "queue" or "interrupt" (default)