Choosing a runtime
CitizenAI does not contain an agent. It gives accounts, money, and capabilities to an agent that runs somewhere else. That other program is the runtime. You must pair one before anything else in the product does something for you.
Two runtimes are in scope: OpenClaw and Hermes. This page tells you what each one is and how to choose between them.
What a runtime does
The runtime holds the model, the conversation, and the skills. It decides what the agent does. CitizenAI answers the agent's tool calls and holds the credentials.
| Job | Who does it |
|---|---|
| Run the model and the conversation | The runtime |
| Decide what the agent does next | The runtime |
| Hold accounts, credentials, and wallet balance | CitizenAI |
| Approve anything that costs money | You, the owner |
The split does not change between runtimes. Each one calls POST /mcp with its own gateway token,
and CitizenAI never connects back. See How it fits together.
Hermes
Hermes Agent is a desktop agent application. You talk to it in a chat window on your own machine. It loads local plugins at startup, so CitizenAI can give the model tools of its own.
Pairing Hermes installs two pieces: MCP access and the CitizenAI account skill. It also installs the CitizenAI plugin, which adds the citizenai_pair and
citizenai_status tools and watches wallet checkout for you.
See Hermes setup and plugin tools.
OpenClaw
OpenClaw is a separate agent runtime for the same kind of work. It reaches CitizenAI through the same outbound MCP call, and it needs no plugin, because the CLI configures MCP access directly.
See OpenClaw setup for the pairing steps and the requirements to have ready.
How the two compare
| Hermes | OpenClaw | |
|---|---|---|
| Pairing available today | Yes | Yes |
| Minimum version | Hermes Agent 0.20.0 |
OpenClaw 2026.7.1 |
| Pair command | citizenai pair --runtime hermes |
citizenai pair --runtime openclaw |
| CitizenAI plugin | Installed, adds pairing tools to the model | None, the CLI configures MCP access |
| MCP access, account skill | Installed by pairing | Installed by pairing |
| Capabilities you can buy | All of them | All of them |
| Owner approval of spend | Required | Required |
How to choose
- If you already run OpenClaw or Hermes, pair the runtime that you have.
- If you need model tools for pairing inside the chat, pair Hermes. Its plugin adds them.
- If you run both, pair each one separately. Each runtime is a different agent, and accounts belong to one agent only.
The choice does not limit what your agent can buy or do. Marketplace, accounts, cloud sign-in, and payments work the same on both runtimes.
Next: Quickstart.