Second, deeper pass over tools/gateway/hermes_cli plus first pass over
the trees wave 1 missed (acp, acp_adapter, skills, computer_use, docker,
dashboard, conformance, monitoring, secret_sources, hermes_state,
providers). Same rubric as wave 1 (AGENTS.md test policy); security,
alternation/caching invariants, issue-number regressions, and E2E kept.
Real test-quality fixes found and rooted out along the way:
- tests/tools/test_command_guards.py made real auxiliary-LLM HTTPS calls
(DEFAULT_CONFIG smart-approval leaked in) — pinned approval
mode=manual via autouse fixture: 17.4s → 0.4s.
- test_model_switch_custom_providers.py / test_user_providers_model_switch.py
silently probed live provider catalogs (~2s/test) — stubbed
cached_provider_model_ids/provider_model_ids/fetch_api_models.
- test_telegram_noise_filter.py: 15-platform copy-paste matrix over
shared gateway.run logic → 3 representative platforms (55s → 3.9s).
- test_gateway_shutdown.py: stop()'s 5s interrupt-deadline loop spun on
MagicMock agents — interrupt.side_effect now clears _running_agents
(22s → 1.0s).
- test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py poll-harness timings shrunk 3-5x
(24s → 1.1s); test_mcp_stability.py backoff/SIGTERM-grace sleeps
patched (15.4s → 2.5s); test_async_delegation.py negative-drain wait
5s → 0.5s.
- test_telegram_init_deadline.py: loop-block margin restored to 1.0s
with rationale comment — the watchdog-dump assertion needs the loop
blocked well past deadline+grace under parallel load (flaked once in
the 40-worker verification run at a 0.2s margin).
Verification: full hermetic suite via scripts/run_tests.sh —
2,438 files, 21,718 tests passed, 0 failed, 293.9s wall.
Suite totals vs original baseline: 46,820 → 19,757 test functions
(−57.8%), wall 583.5s → 293.9s (−50%), subprocess CPU 13,564s → 11,623s.
`_prepare_inbound_message_text` (async) called `_decide_image_input_mode`
inline for every inbound image. That decision is synchronous and does
blocking network I/O on the way to a capability answer:
- `agent.models_dev.fetch_models_dev` — an HTTP GET to models.dev (15s
timeout) whenever the 1-hour in-memory cache is cold or models.dev is slow.
- `agent.model_metadata.query_ollama_supports_vision` — HTTP probes
(`detect_local_server_type` + `/api/show`) against a local Ollama server
when the active provider fronts one.
Running that inline blocks the gateway event loop for up to the request
timeout — so a single user attaching an image freezes EVERY session on that
gateway (no other messages processed, no heartbeats) until the fetch/probe
returns or times out. This is the same off-the-loop class as the cron-fire
verifier and the async_is_safe_url work.
Wrap the call in `asyncio.to_thread` so the blocking capability lookup runs
on a worker thread and the loop stays responsive. The decision result and
routing are unchanged.
Test: a gateway image-routing runtime test asserts the capability lookup runs
off the main (event-loop) thread; it runs on the main thread before the fix.
