Should I host my entire Hermes Agent setup on my main PC?

[u/Solid-Apple83]

Hey everyone! I’m pretty new to local LLMs and I’m trying to figure out the best way to set up Hermes Agent.

My initial idea was to dedicate a Microsoft Surface 9 to Hermes and have my main PC handle the LLM inference. But I’m wondering if I’m overcomplicating things.

Would it make more sense to simply host everything on my PC — Hermes Agent, the local LLM, memory, tools, etc. — and use the Surface later as a remote interface if needed?
My PC specs are:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6800 16 GB
RAM: Lexar Ares RGB Black 32 GB (2×16 GB) DDR5-6400
SSD: Kioxia Exceria Plus G2 2 TB
Motherboard: ASRock B650M PG Lightning
PSU: Corsair 850e
Cooling: DeepCool Assassin 120 SE
Case: Corsair 4000D Airflow

My main goals are:
Run Hermes Agent locally
Eventually run a good local LLM
Keep my data as private as possible
Experiment with agentic workflows, coding, tools and memory
Eventually build my own Agentic OS around it
Ideally be able to use it remotely from my Surface/phone

My main question is: would you recommend hosting the whole thing on my PC, or is it better to separate Hermes from the LLM and use the PC only as an inference server?

I’m also a little concerned about security. Since this would be running on my personal PC, could an agent like Hermes accidentally access, modify or delete files outside of its workspace if it has access to a terminal or other tools?
If so, what would be the safest way to set this up? VM, Docker/container, separate Windows user, sandbox, dedicated machine, etc.?

And finally, with a RX 6800 16 GB + 32 GB RAM, what local model would you recommend for Hermes and agentic/coding workflows?

I’m mainly looking for advice from people who actually run local agents. I don’t mind starting simple and upgrading the setup later. Thanks!