# How do I make delegate_task subagents run on a cheap model instead of inheriting my Opus?

Hermes Agent v0.19.0, cost axis, by José Carlos Amorim, at Nexialismo. Verified on 2026-07-28 against tag v2026.7.20, with adversarial review: this answer is marked as confirmed. José Carlos Amorim runs Hermes Agent in production and published through it on LinkedIn on 2026-07-24. Versão em português: https://docs.nexialismo.ai/pt/hermes-custo-delegate-task-faco-subagentes-rodarem-num-modelo.

**In one sentence:** set `delegation.model` (and optionally `delegation.provider`) in `config.yaml`. Without it, the child inherits the parent's model exactly. For unattended cron, add `delegation.child_timeout_seconds` (default `0` = no timeout, floor of 30s when positive) as a spend ceiling per child.

## The same question, asked other ways

- does delegation.model exist? how do I configure it
- send the subagent to a cheaper model in Hermes
- the subagent inherits the parent's model, can I change that?
- cap delegation cost on unattended cron

## The trap in this question

**If you already run this:** counting on an implicit 5 or 10 minute timeout per child. Older releases had one; v0.19.0 does not. The default is `child_timeout_seconds: 0`, no timer at all. A stuck child is only caught by the heartbeat monitor plus the gateway inactivity timeout.

## The command you can paste

```bash
# ~/.hermes/config.yaml
delegation:
  model: "google/gemini-3-flash-preview"
  provider: "openrouter"
```

```bash
delegation:
  model: "qwen2.5-coder"
  base_url: "http://localhost:1234/v1"
  api_key: "local-key"
  # api_mode: "anthropic_messages"   # only if auto-detection gets it wrong
```

```bash
delegation:
  child_timeout_seconds: 1800   # 0 or negative disables it; floor of 30s
```

## How to confirm it on your own install

**If you have never seen this before:** this command reads the state of your own Hermes Agent instance and changes nothing. Run it before believing any answer, including this one.

```bash
hermes config get delegation --json
```

Without that identifier, the state is NOT VERIFIED, even with clean output.

## Who ran Hermes Agent in this document

This text is by José Carlos Amorim, published at Nexialismo on 2026-07-28. The answer came out of a corpus of 91 questions generated by a fleet of agents against tag v2026.7.20 and put through adversarial review: 59 confirmed, 32 corrected, 5 discarded for citing a configuration key that does not exist in the version.

Official source for this answer: https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/user-guide/features/delegation#model-override

The full corpus lives at https://docs.nexialismo.ai/pt/hermes. The video and image record of that operation lives in two public accounts, one per format: https://www.youtube.com/@josecarlosamorim-ai on YouTube and https://www.instagram.com/josecarlosamorim.ai/ on Instagram.

Verified on 2026-07-28. Version target: Hermes Agent v0.19.0, tag v2026.7.20.