Summary

When Hermes is deployed in a container where the gateway process runs as a non-root user (e.g. hermes UID 10000), running hermes login --provider openai-codex interactively via docker exec -it <container> hermes login ... writes $HERMES_HOME/auth.json as root:root mode 600. The TUI started the same way works (root can read its own file), but the gateway process — and therefore the Telegram/Discord/etc. channel — fails on every request with:

Provider authentication failed: no Codex credentials stored.
Run 'hermes auth' to authenticate. Run 'hermes model' to reauthenticate.

Logs show:

WARNING agent.auxiliary_client: resolve_provider_client: openai-codex requested but no Codex OAuth token found (run: hermes model)

The error message is misleading — credentials are stored, they're just unreadable by the gateway's UID.

Reproduction

1. Build/run Hermes in a container whose entrypoint runs the gateway as a non-root user (in our case the official Dockerfile pattern with USER hermes UID 10000, HOME=/opt/data).
2. From the host, log in interactively as root: docker exec -it hermes-gateway hermes login --provider openai-codex and complete the OAuth device flow.
3. Verify in TUI (also via docker exec -it hermes-gateway hermes): chat works, hermes status shows OpenAI Codex ✓ logged in, hermes auth list shows openai-codex (1 credentials).
4. Send a message via the Telegram channel → fails with the error above.

ls -la /opt/data/auth.json shows -rw------- 1 root root while the rest of /opt/data/ is owned by hermes:hermes.

Workaround

docker exec hermes-gateway chown <uid>:<gid> /opt/data/auth.json
docker compose restart hermes-gateway

Or run the login as the container user from the start:

docker exec -u <uid> -it hermes-gateway /opt/hermes/.venv/bin/hermes login --provider openai-codex

Suggested fix

One or more of:

1. When hermes login writes auth.json, chown the file to the parent directory's owner (i.e. match $HERMES_HOME ownership). Most robust — works regardless of who launched hermes login.
2. When the gateway hits a "no credentials" path while auth.json exists on disk but is unreadable, raise a clearer error (auth.json exists but is not readable by uid=N instead of the generic "no credentials stored").
3. Document the docker exec -u <uid> pattern in the Docker/deployment docs.

Happy to PR (1) or (2) if you'd like.

Environment

• Hermes: main branch (rreben/hermes-agent fork, last sync April 2026)
• Container user: hermes UID 10000, HERMES_HOME=/opt/data
• Provider: openai-codex (also affects any OAuth-based provider that writes auth.json — likely nous too)
• Channel: Telegram (but applies to any gateway channel, since they share the gateway process)