# NousResearch/hermes-agent · JSON-string providers config silently broken at load time

## Open now

- Nothing open on GitHub.

Stored provider configurations encoded as JSON strings are ignored by consumer code, causing vision support and custom provider lookups to fail. A fix targets decoding these JSON-string-typed providers at load time.

## TL;DR

- 3 member(s): 0 open issue(s), 1 closed issue(s), 0 open PR(s), 1 merged PR(s), 1 PR(s) closed without merging.
- A fix was merged to main in PR #118843. Verify it addresses your case.
- **Recommended:** read PR #118843 (and any competing PRs below) before filing. Confirm the merged change covers your symptom.

## Maintainer resolution verdict

- Internal-tracker verdict over this cluster's issue members: `unresolved`. This is distinct from the fix status above. Weigh it yourself.

## How this cluster was grouped

- Link evidence (`STRUCTURAL_SPANNING`): every member is connected by structural evidence: shared changed files, or a closing/superseded reference.
- Pairwise link density `0.67`: the share of member pairs that carry a link, counting a structural link in full and a relevance-only link at 0.36. `1.00` means every pair is linked.

## Closed / duplicate issues

- #88451: providers: stored as a JSON string is silently ignored by all consumer code — per-model supports_vision and custom-provider identity lookups never resolve

## Prior & competing PRs

- **#118843: config.yaml quoted-string lists are flagged by doctor/startup and no longer written by config set; catalog stars probe re-mints its App token (#83308 #105706 #118113)**. merged to main · fix tier `verified`
  - maintainer direction: category `merged`
  - files: `.github/workflows/skills-index.yml`, `hermes_cli/config.py`, `tests/hermes_cli/test_config_set_list_values.py`, `tests/hermes_cli/test_config_validation.py`, `tests/website/test_fetch_plugin_stars.py`, `website/docs/reference/cli-commands.md`, `website/scripts/fetch-plugin-stars.py`
- **#88465: fix(config): decode JSON-string-typed providers at load time (#88451)**. closed without merge
  - maintainer direction: category `superseded_by_pr`; implication `superseded`; refs `c3021aff0dc`, `#118843`, `#105706`

## Fix status

- Merged to main in PR #118843 (cited above). No release data is tracked. Verify downstream.
- Fix last verified (merged) `2026-09-22`.
- Subsystem: `hermes_cli`