Release tracks: Google Play vs Sideload

Hermes-Relay ships in two flavors built from the same codebase. Most users want the Google Play one. Power users who want the agent to drive their phone hands-free want the sideload one. This page explains what's different, why, and how to choose.

Choose your build

Start with Google Play unless you specifically want Device Control. The two builds use different application IDs, so they can coexist on one phone while you decide.

Recommended

Google Play

Fastest setup, automatic updates, and the complete everyday Hermes experience.

• Chat, voice, profiles, and Manage
• Terminal, media, and notifications with Relay
• No AccessibilityService or unattended phone control

Power users

Sideload

The same app plus Device Control for people who want Hermes to operate the phone.

• Everything in the Google Play build
• Screen reading, taps, typing, and navigation
• Manual signed-APK installation and updates

Download the signed APK →

Build choice ≠ Relay choice. Google Play versus Sideload controls what Android can do. The optional Relay plugin controls access to terminal, media, notifications, and device channels on your Hermes host. How Relay fits in →

How the pieces combine

It's easy to read this page as "Google Play vs Sideload" and miss that two independent things decide what your agent can do:

• The Relay plugin (server-side) — an optional plugin on the machine running Hermes. Pairing it unlocks terminal/TUI, relay & enhanced voice, notification forwarding, media handoff, desktop tools, and the device-control channel.
• The build flavor (app-side) — Google Play or Sideload. This only decides whether AccessibilityService Device Control is compiled into the APK.

Chat, Manage, and Vanilla Hermes voice need neither — they run on unmodified upstream Hermes. Everything else is additive:

1. 1
   Vanilla Hermes

   Nothing on your Hermes

   Chat · Manage · standard voice — runs on unmodified upstream Hermes

2. 2
   + Relay plugin (paired)

   Relay plugin on your Hermes host

   Terminal / TUI · relay & enhanced voice · notification forwarding · media handoff · desktop tools

3. 3
   + Sideload build

   Relay plugin AND the sideload APK

   Device Control — screen reading · taps · typing · vision-driven navigation

Two independent prerequisites. The Relay plugin is server-side (installed on the machine running Hermes); the Sideload build is app-side (which APK you install). Device Control needs both — a sideload app with no paired relay still can't drive your phone, and a paired relay on the Google Play build has no phone-control surface.

So Device Control needs both: the Relay plugin paired and the sideload build. A sideload app with no paired relay still can't drive your phone, and a paired relay on the Google Play build still has no phone-control surface. The flavor table below assumes a paired relay — it isolates the one axis this page is about (which build), not whether the plugin is installed.

Why two tracks?

Hermes-Relay's sideload Device Control channel uses Android's Accessibility Service — a powerful API designed for screen readers and assistive tech that, by extension, lets one app see and control another. It's exactly the right tool for letting an AI assistant act on your behalf, but Google Play scrutinizes accessibility-service apps very carefully because the same API is also a popular vector for malware.

To stay inside Google Play's policy without giving up the rest of the app, the Hermes-Relay APK on Google Play is built from a smaller subset of the source. The accessibility service, screen-reading routes, gesture dispatch, screenshots, SMS/call/contact/location helpers, overlays, wake-lock Device Control, and unattended-control code are not compiled into the APK at all. It's not "disabled with a flag" — the code is physically absent from the binary Google reviews and you install. Notification companion stays available through Android's separate Notification Access permission.

If you want the full feature set — including screen reading or any part where the agent performs actions on the phone for you — that's the sideload build, distributed straight from GitHub Releases as a signed APK.

What's in each track

Feature

Google PlayEasy install. Conservative scope.

SideloadManual install. Full feature set.

Comparison of features available in the Google Play and Sideload release tracks of Hermes-Relay.

Feature	Google Play	Sideload
Chat & voice
Chat with your agent Direct streaming chat over the Hermes API. No middleman.	Included	Included
Hermes Chat + Voice Output Stable voice mode: Android records speech, Hermes owns the chat/tool turn, and the relay renders the answer aloud.	Included	Included
Realtime Agent Opt-in provider-native realtime voice with Hermes-brokered tools, confirmations, profiles, and transcript state. Experimental in both tracks; provider secrets and Hermes tools stay on the relay.	Included	Included
Profiles, personalities, sessions Full session browser, profile picker, agent/personality context, and per-profile voice defaults.	Included	Included
Bridge Core
Relay pairing and status Pair by QR/manual code, manage relay sessions, grants, endpoint health, and connection diagnostics.	Included	Included
Terminal/TUI relay Use paired relay sessions for terminal and Hermes TUI access to the host.	Included	Included
Notification triage Optional Android Notification Access forwards posted-notification metadata to your paired relay.	Included	Included
Media handoff Relay-registered media renders in chat and can be shared through Android-native flows.	Included	Included
Sideload Device Control
Read what is on your screen Agent can inspect the accessibility tree so it can answer "what does this say?" Google Play has no AccessibilityService or screen-reading surface. Install sideload for Device Control.	Not in this track	Included
Tap, type, and swipe (with confirmation) Agent can perform UI actions on your behalf. Google Play command probes fail closed with device_control_sideload_only before any AccessibilityService-dependent code can run.	Not in this track	Included
Reply to messages from voice "Text Sam I will be 10 min late" — fully hands-free. Voice-routed bridge intents are sideload-only.	Not in this track	Included
Vision-driven navigation Agent looks at the screen and figures out what to tap on its own. Vision-driven UI navigation requires the unrestricted accessibility surface and is sideload-only.	Not in this track	Included
Workflow recording (future) Show the agent something once, ask it to repeat the workflow later.	Not in this track	Included
Device Control safety rails
App blocklist Banking, password managers, and work email default-blocked from bridge actions. Not needed on Google Play because Device Control is absent from that artifact.	Not in this track	Included
Confirmation on destructive verbs "Send", "pay", "delete", "transfer" — always prompt before acting.	Not in this track	Included
Auto-disable + activity log Bridge turns itself off when idle. Every action is logged with a thumbnail.	Not in this track	Included
Install & updates
One-tap install Install from the Play Store with no special permissions. Sideload requires enabling "Install unknown apps" for your browser the first time.	Included	Not in this track
Automatic updates Get new versions without thinking about it. Sideload updates are a manual download from GitHub Releases.	Included	Limited

Both tracks build from the same Kotlin source tree. Tier 3, 4, and 6 features are compiled out of the Google Play APK at build time via Gradle product flavors — they are not present in the binary, not just hidden behind a switch.

How to choose

• Want the easiest install and automatic updates? → Google Play.
• Want notification summaries, chat, profiles, terminal/TUI, media, and voice without sideloading? → Google Play.
• Want the agent to answer questions about what's on screen? → Sideload.
• Want hands-free voice control of your phone — "text Sam I'll be 10 minutes late" without touching your screen? → Sideload.
• Want the agent to look at your screen and figure out how to drive an unfamiliar app on your behalf? → Sideload.
• Don't know yet? → Start with Google Play. You can install sideload later — they live side-by-side as separate apps.

Can I switch later?

Yes — and you don't even have to choose just one. The two builds use different application IDs (com.axiomlabs.hermesrelay for Google Play and com.axiomlabs.hermesrelay.sideload for sideload), which means Android treats them as two completely separate apps. Each gets its own launcher icon, its own settings, and its own paired-device entry on the relay.

If you want to migrate fully from one to the other, just uninstall the one you no longer use. Sessions, attachments, and pairings are stored per-app, so wiping the old one only affects that one.

How to install each

Google Play

One tap from the Play Store listing. Updates arrive automatically.

Open the Play Store listing →

Sideload

Download the file ending in -sideload-release.apk from the latest GitHub Release (for example, hermes-relay-1.0.0-sideload-release.apk), allow installs from your browser, and tap the file. Full step-by-step instructions (including how to verify the APK signature) live in Installation & Setup → Sideload APK.

GitHub Android Releases →

Updates

• Google Play updates automatically through the Play Store — you'll get new versions in the background like any other Play app.
• Sideload checks GitHub for a newer release on app cold start (at most once every 6 hours) and shows a dismissable banner at the top of the app when you're behind. Tap Update → the sideload APK opens in your browser, Android's Downloads notification hands it to the system installer, done. No second app required, no new permissions. You can also trigger a manual check at Settings → About → Updates. If you prefer to subscribe to release notifications directly, click Watch → Custom → Releases on the repo.

In both cases, the server-side plugin is updated independently on whatever machine runs your Hermes agent — re-run hermes plugins install Codename-11/hermes-relay/plugin, or run the hermes-relay-update shim if you used the legacy installer — see the installation guide for that flow.

Safety rails

The safety rail system is designed for the sideload track where the agent can control the phone. On the Google Play track, action routes are blocked at the code level (not "disabled by a flag" — the routes return 403 and the safety settings UI is hidden entirely), so the safety rails don't fire because there's nothing to gate.

On the sideload track, the full safety rail stack runs:

• Per-app blocklist — banking apps, password managers, and your work email are blocked from any bridge action by default. You can add or remove entries from Settings.
• Confirmation on destructive verbs — words like send, pay, delete, transfer, post, publish, and buy trigger a system-overlay confirmation prompt before the agent acts. This fires on /tap_text, /type, AND on /tap + /long_press when the tapped button's text contains a destructive verb (so tapping a "Send" button by node ID is also gated).
• Auto-disable — bridge mode turns itself off after a configurable idle period.
• Activity log — every command the agent runs is logged with a timestamp and the result.
• Persistent notification — when bridge is on, you always have a system-tray notification with a one-tap kill switch.
• Denial is final — if you tap Deny on the confirmation prompt, the agent receives a structured error_code: user_denied response with an explicit "do not retry via UI automation" instruction. The agent cannot work around a denial by driving the Messages app UI instead.

On the Google Play track, none of the above fires because Device Control is absent. The Bridge tab shows Bridge Core status and links for Connections, Terminal, Voice, Notification Companion, Media, and Relay Sessions; it does not show Accessibility, screen reading, gesture, screenshot, or safety-rail controls.