diff --git a/tests/tools/test_code_execution.py b/tests/tools/test_code_execution.py
index 15f8faa9bb..6f6260ffe2 100644
--- a/tests/tools/test_code_execution.py
+++ b/tests/tools/test_code_execution.py
@@ -770,11 +770,19 @@ class TestLoadConfig(unittest.TestCase):
 
     def test_returns_code_execution_section(self):
         from tools.code_execution_tool import _load_config
-        mock_cli = MagicMock()
-        mock_cli.CLI_CONFIG = {"code_execution": {"timeout": 120, "max_tool_calls": 10}}
-        with patch.dict("sys.modules", {"cli": mock_cli}):
+        with patch("hermes_cli.config.read_raw_config",
+                   return_value={"code_execution": {"timeout": 120, "max_tool_calls": 10}}):
             result = _load_config()
-        self.assertIsInstance(result, dict)
+        self.assertEqual(result, {"timeout": 120, "max_tool_calls": 10})
+
+    def test_does_not_import_interactive_cli(self):
+        from tools.code_execution_tool import _load_config
+        mock_cli = MagicMock()
+        mock_cli.CLI_CONFIG = {"code_execution": {"timeout": 999}}
+        with patch.dict("sys.modules", {"cli": mock_cli}), \
+             patch("hermes_cli.config.read_raw_config", return_value={}):
+            result = _load_config()
+        self.assertEqual(result, {})
 
 
 # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
diff --git a/tools/code_execution_tool.py b/tools/code_execution_tool.py
index db706e6a4c..3f83394c18 100644
--- a/tools/code_execution_tool.py
+++ b/tools/code_execution_tool.py
@@ -1309,10 +1309,20 @@ def _kill_process_group(proc, escalate: bool = False):
 
 
 def _load_config() -> dict:
-    """Load code_execution config from CLI_CONFIG if available."""
+    """Load code_execution config without importing the interactive CLI.
+
+    This helper is called while building the module-level execute_code schema
+    during tool discovery.  Importing ``cli`` here pulls prompt_toolkit/Rich and
+    a large chunk of the classic REPL onto every agent startup path, including
+    ``hermes --tui`` where it is never used.  Read the lightweight raw config
+    instead; the config layer already caches by (mtime, size), and an absent
+    key cleanly falls back to DEFAULT_EXECUTION_MODE.
+    """
     try:
-        from cli import CLI_CONFIG
-        return CLI_CONFIG.get("code_execution", {})
+        from hermes_cli.config import read_raw_config
+
+        cfg = read_raw_config().get("code_execution", {})
+        return cfg if isinstance(cfg, dict) else {}
     except Exception:
         return {}