diff --git a/src/lib/inference/onboard-probes.test.ts b/src/lib/inference/onboard-probes.test.ts
index 20a4a0cf3e..0300fdd67a 100644
--- a/src/lib/inference/onboard-probes.test.ts
+++ b/src/lib/inference/onboard-probes.test.ts
@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
 // SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Copyright (c) 2026 NVIDIA CORPORATION & AFFILIATES. All rights reserved.
 // SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
 
-import { describe, expect, it } from "vitest";
 import fs from "node:fs";
 import os from "node:os";
 import path from "node:path";
+import { describe, expect, it } from "vitest";
 
 const {
   getChatCompletionsProbeCurlArgs,
@@ -17,9 +17,15 @@ const {
   isSandboxInternalUrl,
   probeOpenAiLikeEndpoint,
   RETRIABLE_HTTP_PROBE_STATUSES,
+  shouldSmokeOpenAiLikeOnboardRoute,
 } = require("../../../dist/lib/inference/onboard-probes");
 
 describe("OpenAI-compatible inference probe response parsing", () => {
+  it("does not host-smoke Hermes Provider with the ambient OPENAI_API_KEY", () => {
+    expect(shouldSmokeOpenAiLikeOnboardRoute("hermes-provider")).toBe(false);
+    expect(shouldSmokeOpenAiLikeOnboardRoute("openai-api")).toBe(true);
+  });
+
   it("detects tool-calling responses payloads conservatively", () => {
     expect(
       hasResponsesToolCall(
diff --git a/src/lib/inference/onboard-probes.ts b/src/lib/inference/onboard-probes.ts
index a86a1afb95..ac84fbe3e0 100644
--- a/src/lib/inference/onboard-probes.ts
+++ b/src/lib/inference/onboard-probes.ts
@@ -835,6 +835,11 @@ module.exports = {
 };
 
 function shouldSmokeOpenAiLikeOnboardRoute(provider) {
+  // Hermes Provider OAuth mints a short-lived agent key and stores it with
+  // OpenShell provider storage. A host-side direct probe would resolve the
+  // ambient OPENAI_API_KEY instead, which can falsely fail after successful
+  // OAuth if the user's shell has a different OpenAI key staged.
+  if (provider === "hermes-provider") return false;
   const { REMOTE_PROVIDER_CONFIG } = require("../onboard/providers");
   if (provider === "nvidia-nim" || provider === "nvidia-router") return true;
   return Object.values(REMOTE_PROVIDER_CONFIG).some(