What the allow-list does NOT gate
Several categories of plugin bypass plugins.enabled - they're part of Hermes' built-in surface and would break basic functionality if gated off by default: Plugin kind How it's activated instead Bundled platform plugins (IRC, Teams, etc. under plugins/platforms/ ) Auto-loaded so every shipped gateway channel is available. The actual channel turns on via gateway.platforms.<name>.enabled in config.yaml . Bundled backends (image-gen providers under plugins/image_gen/ , etc.) Auto-loaded so the default backend "just works". Selection happens via <category>.provider in config.yaml (e.g. image_gen.provider: openai ). Memory providers ( plugins/memory/ ) All discovered; exactly one is active, chosen by memory.provider in config.yaml . Context engines ( plugins/context_engine/ ) All discovered; one is active, chosen by context.engine in config.yaml . Model providers ( plugins/model-providers/ ) All bundled providers under plugins/model-providers/ discover and register at the first get_provider_profile() call. The user picks one at a time via --provider or config.yaml . Pip-installed backend plugins Opt-in via plugins.enabled (same as general plugins). User-installed platforms (under ~/.her…
From the official Hermes Agent documentation.