In profile mode, _load_provider_state previously returned None when a
provider was absent from the profile's auth.json — even if the user had
authenticated at the global root. This broke runtime credential resolvers
that read state directly (resolve_nous_access_token,
resolve_nous_runtime_credentials), causing profiles without their own
nous login to fail with 'Hermes is not logged into Nous Portal' despite
a valid global session.
Push the existing read-only global fallback (already used by
get_provider_auth_state and read_credential_pool) into _load_provider_state
so every caller benefits, and simplify get_provider_auth_state into a thin
wrapper. Writes still target the profile only — profile state continues to
shadow global state on the next read after a per-profile login. Behavior in
classic (non-profile) mode is unchanged because _load_global_auth_store
returns an empty dict.
Adds 5 tests covering the new contract on _load_provider_state directly.
Existing 770 auth/credential/nous tests still pass.
Profile processes (kanban workers, cron subprocesses, delegated subagents)
read the profile's auth.json only. If a provider was authenticated at the
global root but not inside the profile, the profile's credential_pool
comes back empty and the process fails with 'No LLM provider configured'
— even though the credentials are sitting in ~/.hermes/auth.json. #18594
propagated HERMES_HOME correctly, which is what surfaced this: workers
now land in the right profile, and the profile turns out to shadow global
with no fallback.
Semantics (read-only, per-provider shadowing):
* Profile has any entries for provider X → use profile only (global ignored).
* Profile has zero entries for provider X → fall back to global.
* Writes (write_credential_pool, _save_auth_store) still target the profile.
* Classic mode (HERMES_HOME == global root) skips the fallback entirely —
_global_auth_file_path() returns None.
Also mirrors the fallback in get_provider_auth_state so OAuth singletons
(nous, minimax-oauth, openai-codex, spotify) inherit cleanly — the Nous
shared-token store (PR #19712) remains the authoritative path for Nous
OAuth rotation, this just makes the read side consistent with it.
Seat belt: _load_global_auth_store() refuses to read the real user's
~/.hermes/auth.json under PYTEST_CURRENT_TEST even when HERMES_HOME points
to a profile-shaped path. Guard uses $HOME (stable across fixtures) rather
than Path.home() (which fixtures often monkeypatch to a tmp root).
Reported by @SeedsForbidden on Twitter as the credential_pool shadowing
follow-up to the #18594 fix.
