hermes - 💡(How to fix) Fix [a2a_fleet] CRITICAL: server never auto-starts — register() runs outside an event loop

Severity: CRITICAL (correctness — feature dead on normal launch)

The a2a_fleet server never auto-starts because register() runs outside an event loop.

Evidence

• plugins/a2a_fleet/__init__.py:34-43 — _schedule_server_start() calls asyncio.get_running_loop(); on RuntimeError it logs a warning and returns (server not started).
• hermes_cli/plugins.py:1143-1166 — _load_plugin calls register_fn(ctx) synchronously (line 1166); discover_and_load (line 766) is a plain sync method invoked from CLI bootstrap (cli.py:7958), not inside a running event loop.

Therefore get_running_loop() raises, the warning branch fires, and the inbound A2A surface (/jsonrpc, agent card) is never bound on a normal launch. Verified: discover_and_load is sync and not inside a loop.

Impact

The entire inbound A2A surface is dead in the real runtime. Tests pass only because pytest-asyncio provides a loop, masking the bug.

Fix

Do not rely on a register-time event loop. Start uvicorn on a named daemon thread with its own loop (matches upstream rubric #10 for background work), or hook a documented startup lifecycle hook. At minimum, surface this as a hard, visible error rather than a debug-level warning.

Filed from opus-4.8 plugin audit (a2a_fleet) vs upstream NousResearch plugin conventions.