🤖 Agent Control

A dark-themed Windows control panel for Hermes (WSL) and OpenClaw (Windows) — start, stop, and monitor your AI agents without opening a terminal.

Start both agents · Stop both agents · One-click status · Auto-refresh

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✨ Features

• 🎛️ Dual-agent control — Start/Stop/Restart/Status for both Hermes and OpenClaw in one window
• 🔍 Smart auto-detection — Auto-discovers WSL distros, Hermes installation, and OpenClaw CLI
• 🩺 Crash-loop detection — Detects when Hermes is restart-cycling and warns you (orange) instead of showing a false green "Active"
• 🕒 Auto-refresh — Updates status every 15s (configurable). Pauses when minimized
• 🎨 OLED dark theme — Easy on the eyes, matches modern terminal aesthetics
• 📋 Live log panel — Timestamped activity log for all actions + export to file
• 🔒 Safety checks — Validates port-owning processes before killing, guards against missing CLIs
• 🪶 Lightweight — Pure PowerShell 5.1 with Windows Forms. No dependencies to install
• 🚀 One-click setup — Setup-Agent-Control.ps1 detects, installs, and configures everything
• ⚙️ In-app settings — Change WSL distro, port, and refresh interval without editing JSON
• 🔔 System tray — Minimize to tray; balloon notifications on status changes. Tray icon changes color dynamically (green=all good, orange=warning, red=down). Hover tooltip shows live agent states. Right-click menu includes quick actions and a Settings shortcut.
• 🏁 Start with Windows — Optional auto-start minimized to tray on Windows login
• 🩺 HTTP health check — OpenClaw status verifies gateway HTTP response, not just TCP port
• 🏷️ Version detection — Auto-detects and shows installed Hermes and OpenClaw versions
• ⌨️ Keyboard shortcuts — F5 = Refresh All, Ctrl+L = Clear log

📸 Preview

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Agent Control                                     🔵 AUTO  │
│  Hermes (WSL)  •  OpenClaw (Windows)              PORT-FIRST │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  ┌──────────────────┐  ┌──────────────────┐                 │
│  │ 🔵 HERMES        │  │ 🟢 OPENCLAW      │                 │
│  │ WSL Ubuntu       │  │ Windows TCP:18789 │                 │
│  │                  │  │                  │                 │
│  │ Active (systemd) │  │ Listening on     │                 │
│  │                  │  │ :18789 (node)    │                 │
│  │ [Start]  [Stop]  │  │ [Start]  [Stop]  │                 │
│  │ [Status] [Restart]  [Status] [Restart] │                 │
│  └──────────────────┘  └──────────────────┘                 │
│  ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐   │
│  │ [Start Both] [Stop Both] [Refresh All] [Auto: ON]   │   │
│  └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘   │
│  ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐   │
│  │ LOG                                              [Clear]│   │
│  │ [10:52:48] Ready. Auto-refresh every 15s.              │   │
│  │ [10:52:48] Diagnostics: wsl.exe ✓, cmd.exe ✓,         │   │
│  │            openclaw ✓                                  │   │
│  │ [10:52:49] Hermes: Active (systemd)                    │   │
│  │ [10:52:49] OpenClaw: Listening on :18789 (node)        │   │
│  └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘   │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

🚀 Quick Start

Option 1: One-click setup (recommended)

git clone https://github.com/BlguunBN/Agent-Control.git
cd agent-control
Setup-Agent-Control.cmd

The setup script will:

1. Detect — Check your system for WSL, Hermes, OpenClaw, Node.js, and Git
2. Report — Show exactly what's installed and what's missing
3. Install — Offer to install missing components automatically:
   • WSL2 + Ubuntu (if not present)
   • Hermes inside WSL (via official install script)
   • OpenClaw on Windows (via npm install -g openclaw)
4. Configure — Copy the GUI, write settings, create desktop and Start Menu shortcuts

Option 2: Fully automatic (no prompts)

Setup-Agent-Control.cmd -AutoInstall

Installs everything missing without asking — useful for provisioning new machines.

Option 3: Manual setup

1. Make sure you have WSL with a Linux distro
2. Install Hermes inside WSL
3. Install OpenClaw on Windows
4. Run Setup-Agent-Control.cmd (or just launch Agent-Control.cmd)

🤖 Set Up with an AI Agent

Use this prompt with Claude Code, Copilot, Cursor, or any other coding assistant:

Help me set up Agent Control on my Windows machine.

Repo: https://github.com/BlguunBN/Agent-Control

What it does:
- manages Hermes in WSL
- manages OpenClaw on Windows
- includes a simple GUI for start / stop / restart / refresh

Please:
1. clone the repo if needed
2. run the setup script
3. check for missing dependencies
4. launch the app when setup is done

If anything fails, explain the fix and the exact command to run.

🖱️ Usage

Controls

Button	What it does
Start	Starts the selected agent
Stop	Stops the selected agent
Status	Refreshes the selected agent's status
Restart	Stops then starts the selected agent in one click
Start Both	Starts Hermes + OpenClaw in sequence
Stop Both	Stops OpenClaw + Hermes in sequence
Refresh All	Refreshes both agent statuses
Auto: ON/OFF	Toggles the auto-refresh timer
Settings	Opens in-app settings dialog
Export (log)	Saves the current log to a .txt file

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
F5	Refresh all statuses
Ctrl+L	Clear the log

Status indicators

Status	Meaning
🟢 Active (systemd)	Hermes gateway is running normally
🟠 Crash-looping (N restarts)	Hermes keeps restarting (N ≥ 5 restarts detected)
🔴 Not active	Gateway is stopped / in failed state
🔴 WSL unavailable	WSL distro can't be reached
🟢 Listening on :port	OpenClaw gateway is accepting connections
🔴 Not listening	Nothing is listening on the OpenClaw port
🔴 CLI missing	openclaw command not found in PATH

🔧 Configuration

Settings are stored in Agent-Control.settings.json (auto-created in the app folder):

{
    "HermesDistro":       "Ubuntu",
    "OpenClawPort":       18789,
    "AutoRefreshSeconds": 15,
    "StartWithWindows":   false
}

Setting	Default	Description
HermesDistro	Ubuntu	WSL distro name where Hermes is installed
OpenClawPort	18789	TCP port to watch for OpenClaw
AutoRefreshSeconds	15	Status refresh interval (1–3600)
StartWithWindows	false	Auto-start minimized to tray on Windows login

Override via environment

Set HERMES_WSL_DISTRO before launching the app to override the WSL distro without editing the settings file.

🔍 Detection Logic

When you run Setup-Agent-Control.ps1, it checks across your system:

┌─ OS ───────────────────┐
│ Windows 10/11 build     │──→ WSL install method
└─────────────────────────┘

┌─ WSL ──────────────────┐
│ wsl --list --quiet      │──→ Available distros
└─────────────────────────┘

┌─ HERMES ───────────────┐
│ For each WSL distro:   │
│  ├─ hermes --version   │──→ CLI installed?
│  ├─ systemctl is-active│──→ Gateway running?
│  └─ NRestarts          │──→ Crash-looping?
└─────────────────────────┘

┌─ OPENCLAW ─────────────┘
│  ├─ PATH / npm-global  │──→ CLI installed?
│  └─ TCP :18789         │──→ Gateway listening?
└─────────────────────────┘

🛠️ Development

Prerequisites

• Windows 10/11 with PowerShell 5.1+
• (Optional) csc.exe to recompile the C# launcher

Build the launcher EXE

If you modify Agent-Control-Launcher.cs, recompile the hidden launcher:

:: From a Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt:
csc.exe -target:winexe -out:"Agent Control GUI.exe" Agent-Control-Launcher.cs

:: Or from PowerShell:
Add-Type -TypeDefinition (Get-Content Agent-Control-Launcher.cs -Raw) -OutputAssembly "Agent Control GUI.exe" -OutputType WindowsApplication

Project Structure

Agent-Control/
├── Agent-Control.ps1                 # Main GUI (Windows Forms)
├── Agent-Control.cmd                 # Launcher (visible window)
├── Agent-Control.vbs                 # Launcher (hidden, legacy)
├── Agent-Control-Launcher.cs         # C# launcher source
├── Agent Control GUI.exe             # Compiled launcher
├── Agent-Control.settings.json       # User settings (gitignored)
├── Setup-Agent-Control.ps1           # Setup + detector + installer
├── Setup-Agent-Control.cmd           # Setup launcher
└── README.md

Coding conventions

• PowerShell 5.1 compatible (no using statements, ForEach-Object, script-scoped variables with $script:)
• Windows Forms only (no WPF dependency)
• Async background jobs with Start-Job + polling timer (never block the UI thread)
• OLED dark palette in $C hash table at the top of Agent-Control.ps1

⚠️ Troubleshooting

"Access is denied" when stopping OpenClaw

OpenClaw may be running with elevated privileges. Try launching Agent Control as Administrator before clicking Stop, or use taskkill /F /PID <pid> from an elevated terminal.

Hermes shows "Active" but isn't responding

The gateway can be systemd-active but crash-looping behind the scenes. Check the restart count: wsl -d Ubuntu -- systemctl --user show hermes-gateway -p NRestarts --value. Agent Control now warns you when NRestarts ≥ 5.

Gateway keeps restarting

We added restart limits to the systemd service. If the gateway has failed 5 times within 10 minutes, systemd stops retrying. Reset it manually:

wsl -d Ubuntu -- systemctl --user reset-failed hermes-gateway
wsl -d Ubuntu -- systemctl --user restart hermes-gateway

OpenClaw not detected

Run where openclaw from a command prompt. If not found, install it:

npm install -g openclaw

📄 License

MIT — do whatever you want with it.

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Built because clicking Start/Stop in a terminal is boring.
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