Local-model users paid a fresh probe waterfall on EVERY CLI cold start
inside AIAgent.__init__: detect_local_server_type (up to 4 HTTP GETs,
2s timeout each on a hung server) + /api/show (3s timeout). The
existing caches were in-process only, so back-to-back invocations
(chat -q, cron ticks, subagents) re-paid the network every time.
- New 300s-TTL disk L2 at HERMES_HOME/cache/local_endpoint_probes.json
for detect_local_server_type verdicts and query_ollama_num_ctx
results. Only SUCCESSFUL probes persist (a down server never pins a
negative verdict); stale entries pruned on write; corrupted cache
degrades to a miss; atomic writes. 300s is strictly fresher than the
1h in-process TTL that already accepts server-swap staleness.
- models.dev fetch timeout 15 -> (5, 10) connect/read tuple: a
blackholed connect stalled the first-turn critical path 15s; now
fails in 5s (matches the OpenRouter fetch convention, #46620).
- _auto_detect_local_model timeout 5 -> (2, 3): runs inside
_get_model_config() at startup against a LOCAL endpoint; a hung local
server cost 5s before the banner.
E2E (real HTTP server, two fresh subprocesses, isolated HERMES_HOME):
proc1 = 2 HTTP hits, proc2 = 0 HTTP hits, identical results
(ollama/131072), probe wall 74.5 -> 35.5 ms. 222 targeted tests green
incl. 9 new disk-L2 contract tests.
