[Bug]: MoA presets disappear from desktop model pickers after explicit_only change (#37a4cf900)

[DavidMetcalfe]

Bug Description

After updating Hermes Desktop, a user's named Mixture of Agents presets (e.g. "Free MOA Gemini build") disappeared from both the chat model-picker pill and the Settings > Models provider dropdown. The preset config (the moa: block, with default_preset: Free MOA Gemini build) was never deleted — the desktop model pickers simply stopped listing the MoA virtual provider.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Configure a MoA preset (Settings > Models > Configure Mixture of Agents presets).
2. Update Hermes Desktop (the regression landed in #37a4cf900, merged Jul 2).
3. Open the chat model-picker pill and type "moa".
4. Observe: only ambient providers appear (e.g. KILO GATEWAY -> Hy3:Free High); no "MOA PRESETS" section.
5. Open Settings > Models provider dropdown: "Mixture of Agents" is missing from the list.

Expected Behavior

The MoA virtual provider and its named presets should remain selectable in explicit-only desktop pickers, the same way user-defined providers do — MoA presets are user-authored config, not ambient auto-seeded credentials.

Actual Behavior

With explicit_only=True (the default for desktop chat pickers since #37a4cf900), _filter_explicit_provider_rows hard-drops the moa virtual provider:

if slug == "moa":
    # MoA is a virtual routing mode, not an independently configured provider.
    # Hide it from explicit-only pickers unless it is the current provider.
    continue

So build_models_payload(ctx, explicit_only=True) returns no moa row, and the chat pill + Settings panel both lose MoA.

Affected Component

• Configuration (config.yaml, .env, hermes setup)
• Other (Desktop model picker UI)

Messaging Platform (if gateway-related)

• N/A (CLI only)

Debug Report

Not pasted — running hermes debug share would upload the user's personal config and logs to a public paste service, so we are intentionally not including it. The bug is fully reproduced and fixed from source; see Root Cause Analysis and Proposed Fix below.

Operating System

macOS 26.5.1 (Desktop)

Python Version

3.11.15

Hermes Version

0.18.2

Root Cause Analysis

hermes_cli/inventory.py, function _filter_explicit_provider_rows. When slug == "moa", the row is unconditionally skipped (continue). This was added by #37a4cf900 along with the explicit_only flag, whose stated intent was to hide ambient / auto-seeded credentials (e.g. GitHub CLI -> Copilot) from desktop chat pickers. MoA presets are explicitly user-authored config, so they should be kept — exactly like is_user_defined provider rows are kept earlier in the same loop.

The chat pill and Settings panel both consume /api/model/options, which calls build_models_payload(..., explicit_only=True) (web_server.py get_model_options), so both surfaces regressed together.

Proposed Fix

In _filter_explicit_provider_rows, keep the moa row instead of skipping it:

if slug == "moa":
    # MoA presets are user-authored config, so keep them in explicit-only pickers.
    kept.append(row)
    continue

A fix + regression test is ready as PR #61887.

Are you willing to submit a PR for this?

• I'd like to fix this myself and submit a PR

References

• Regressing PR: #37a4cf900 ("fix: limit desktop model pickers to explicit providers", merged Jul 2). Its intent was legitimate — it closed two reported bugs:
  • Desktop chat model picker shows implicitly discovered providers as if they were configured #56974 — chat picker showed ambient/implicitly-discovered providers (Copilot via gh_cli, residual Nous creds) as if explicitly configured.
  • [Bug]: Stale credential pool entries cause removed providers to persist in model picker #55790 — a removed provider's API key stayed in the picker because a stale auth.json credential-pool env: entry survived after the env var was deleted. The PR hardened is_provider_explicitly_configured to count only explicit pool sources (manual/device-code/PKCE) and env: entries only when the var still resolves now.
• The MoA break is a category error in that filter: MoA presets are user-authored config (named presets from the MoA settings panel), but they have no API key / provider-specific env, so is_provider_explicitly_configured("moa") is always False. The filter treated MoA like borrowed gh_cli credentials and dropped it. The fix keeps the row (the moa row is only ever produced by _moa_provider_row when presets exist, so there is no ambient-clutter risk). Fix: PR fix(moa): keep MoA presets in explicit-only desktop pickers (#61889) #61887.

[alt-glitch]

This was generated by AI during triage.

Duplicate of #60722 (earliest-open report of the same regression). The explicit_only filter added in 37a4cf9 hard-drops the virtual moa row in hermes_cli/inventory.py::_filter_explicit_provider_rows unless MoA is already current, so the Desktop picker can never surface configured MoA presets. Open fix PRs #60757 and #61887 both address it. Tracking on #60722.