# How do I give a subagent a tool the parent does not have? Do I pass toolsets in delegate_task?

Hermes Agent v0.19.0, multi-agent 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-multiagente-delegate-task-faco-pro-subagente-ter-tool-agente-pai.

**In one sentence:** you cannot, and that is deliberate. `delegate_task` does **not accept** a model-facing `toolsets` parameter: every subagent inherits the toolsets enabled on the parent, so the model cannot hand a child powers the parent does not have. Configure the parent's tools **before** starting the conversation.

## The same question, asked other ways

- does delegate_task accept a toolsets parameter?
- how do I give extra tools to a subagent in Hermes?
- my subagent has no browser even though I asked for it
- which toolsets does a subagent inherit from the parent?

## The trap in this question

**If you already run this:** passing `toolsets=[...]` in `delegate_task` expecting to widen the child. The parameter does not exist. If you want variation per unit of work, use Kanban with per-card `skills`, or reconfigure the parent before the conversation starts.

## The command you can paste

```bash
# enable it on the PARENT, before you start
hermes --toolsets hermes-cli,browser chat
```

```bash
hermes kanban create "audit auth" --assignee reviewer \
  --skill security-pr-audit --skill github-code-review
```

## 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 tools
```

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

## What a leaf child cannot call

Inheritance is not the same as freedom. In v0.19.0, `tools/delegate_tool.py` keeps a `DELEGATE_BLOCKED_TOOLS` frozenset that blocks **six** tools for leaf children: `delegate_task` (no recursive delegation), `clarify` (no user interaction), `memory` (no writes to the shared MEMORY.md), `send_message` (no cross-platform side effects), `execute_code` (children should reason step by step, not write scripts) and `cronjob` (no scheduling more work in the parent's name). The official docs list four of the six, and `execute_code` is one of the missing ones: a pipeline where the child runs a Python script breaks silently. A child with `role="orchestrator"` gets back only `delegate_task`; the other five stay blocked.

## 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

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.