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Dogfood — Setup Guide

Source: nousresearch/hermes-agent (Official) Skill: dogfood · Installs: 4.9K+ · Category: QA / Testing Platform: Linux, macOS, Windows

Dogfood is Nous Research's official skill for systematic exploratory QA testing of web applications. It guides Hermes agents through a structured 5-phase workflow — Plan, Explore, Interact, Edge Cases, Report — using the browser toolset to find bugs, capture screenshots as evidence, and produce structured bug reports.

Installation

npx skills add nousresearch/hermes-agent@dogfood

Prerequisites

Requirement Details
Hermes Agent Latest version with browser toolset
Browser tools browser_navigate, browser_snapshot, browser_click, browser_type, browser_vision, browser_console, browser_scroll, browser_back, browser_press
Target URL The web application to test
Testing scope Features/areas to focus on (or "full site")

Workflow

Phase 1: Plan

  1. Create output directory: dogfood-output/screenshots/
  2. Identify testing scope from user input
  3. Build a sitemap — pages, features, flows to test:
  4. Landing/home page
  5. Navigation (header, footer, sidebar)
  6. Key user flows (sign up, login, search, checkout)
  7. Forms and interactive elements
  8. Edge cases (empty states, error pages, 404s)

Phase 2: Explore

For each page in your plan:

  1. Navigate: browser_navigate(url="https://example.com/page")
  2. Snapshot: browser_snapshot() — understand DOM structure
  3. Console check: browser_console(clear=true) — catch JS errors after every navigation and interaction. Silent JS errors are high-value findings.
  4. Visual assessment: browser_vision(question="Describe the page layout, identify visual issues, broken elements, or accessibility concerns", annotate=true) — annotate=true overlays numbered [N] labels on interactive elements. Each [N] maps to ref @eN.

Phase 3: Interact

For each interactive element identified:

  1. Click buttons/links: browser_click(ref="@eN")
  2. Fill forms: browser_type(ref="@eN", text="test input")
  3. Check console after each interaction
  4. Take screenshots of any issues

Phase 4: Edge Cases

Test boundary conditions:

  • Empty form submissions
  • Invalid inputs (emails, passwords, special characters)
  • Rapid double-clicks
  • Browser back/forward navigation
  • Mobile viewport (responsive testing)
  • Network throttling / offline states
  • 404 pages and error states

Phase 5: Report

Produce a structured bug report in dogfood-output/report.md:

  • Summary: Overall assessment (1-2 sentences)
  • Critical Issues: Blockers with evidence screenshots
  • Major Issues: Significant bugs affecting UX
  • Minor Issues: Cosmetic or edge-case problems
  • Console Errors: All JS errors found with page context
  • Recommendations: Prioritized fix order

Verification

After running, verify: - Report exists at dogfood-output/report.md - Screenshots captured for each issue - Console errors are documented with page URLs