Docs/Platform
Email templates
Hermes writes the copy fresh per person — templates control how it's presented. Choose plain text, simple HTML, or fully branded designed templates with an AI designer.
Templates in Hermes are the opposite of mail merge. The AI writes each email's copy from scratch; the template decides what that copy is wrapped in. Your organization sets a default mode, and any trigger can override it.
| Mode | What recipients see |
|---|---|
| Plain text | Just the words, plus your footer and unsubscribe link. Reads like a personal email. |
| Simple HTML | Clean, minimal HTML with compliance links — no design shell. The default. |
| Designed template | A fully branded layout — logo, colors, buttons, footer — with the AI-written copy slotted in. |
Designed templates
Designed templates are built in a visual editor (Settings → Email templates) — sections, headings, images, buttons, dividers, your brand colors and fonts. Every template contains one content slot where the personalized copy lands at send time, and marketing templates carry an unsubscribe slot so compliance is baked into the design, not bolted on.
Templates have a draft → published lifecycle: edit freely in draft, publish when ready. Only published templates can be used for sending, and publishing validates the template — exactly one content slot, unsubscribe present where required — so a broken layout can't ship.
Rendering happens at send time, not draft time. If you update a template or your organization's footer, emails already sitting in the review queue go out with the new version.
The AI designer
You don't have to build templates by hand. Describe what you want and the AI designer generates or edits the layout:
"Create a template with our logo at top, dark footer, single CTA button."
"Make the header background our brand navy and round the button corners."
"Add a two-column feature section under the main content."The designer works everywhere: conversationally inside the template editor, from the CLI (hermes templates design "..."), over MCP (design_template), or through the API (POST /templates/design). Agents can create, revise, publish, and set default templates end-to-end without opening the dashboard.
Choosing what a trigger uses
Resolution is simple: a trigger that specifies a template mode (and, for designed mode, a specific template) wins; otherwise your organization's default mode and default template apply. Set the org default under Settings → Email, or with hermes templates mode and hermes templates set-default.