hermes - 💡(How to fix) Fix computer-use / cua-driver can consume CPU while idle

Summary

Computer-use automation appears to consume noticeable CPU even when it is not actively being used. The user-visible symptom is that the process associated with the computer-use stack / cua-driver keeps the machine busy while idle.

Environment

• OS: macOS 26.4.1
• Hermes Agent: v0.14.0 (2026.5.16)
• Hermes repo: NousResearch/hermes-agent
• Installed commit: 43e566f77 (docs(fallback): document layered auxiliary fallback ladder)
• Local repo state: 67 commits behind origin/main
• cua-driver: installed at ~/.local/bin/cua-driver, version 0.2.0
• hermes computer-use status: reports cua-driver installed and suggests hermes computer-use install --upgrade

What I expected

When no computer-use tool is being invoked, cua-driver / the computer-use automation stack should be completely idle or near-zero CPU, and any daemon should not continuously poll screen/AX state.

What happened

The user observed that the computer-use automation process consumes a lot of CPU even when not being used.

I grabbed a few live diagnostics right after the report. At that moment:

• cua-driver status said: cua-driver daemon is not running
• launchctl list did not show a cua-driver launch agent; only the Hermes gateway was loaded (ai.hermes.gateway).
• cua-driver diagnose showed:
  • version: 0.2.0
  • Accessibility trusted: true
  • Screen recording available: true
  • app bundle exists at /Applications/CuaDriver.app
  • daemon plist does not exist
  • updater plist does not exist

CPU sample at the time did not show a live cua-driver daemon, but it did show the desktop/computer-use stack around Claude/Hermes activity using CPU. Example high entries from the same investigation:

/Applications/Claude.app/.../Claude Helper (Renderer) ... --desktop-features={...,"computerUse":{"status":"supported"},...}
/Users/USER/.hermes/hermes-agent/venv/bin/python -m hermes_cli.main gateway run --replace

Earlier ps sample showed a Claude renderer at ~130% CPU and WindowServer at ~56%; later samples dropped. This may mean the idle CPU issue is intermittent, or that the hot process is not named cua-driver even though it is related to computer-use automation.

Request

Can you audit the computer-use / cua-driver idle behavior and make sure:

1. cua-driver is not started unless a computer-use tool is actually called.
2. Any daemon/socket mode sleeps when idle rather than polling screen/AX continuously.
3. Hermes does not keep the driver or related screen-observation loop alive after tool completion.
4. There is a clear way to fully disable/stop computer-use automation when the toolset is not in use.

Happy to provide another ps/sample dump when the CPU spike is actively happening.

Sanitization

User paths in diagnostics were redacted to /Users/USER; no tokens or secrets included.