hermes-config/skills/autonomous-ai-agents/hermes-local-providers/references/ollama-auth-error-fix.md

Ollama "Provider Authentication Error" Fix

Symptom

After configuring a local provider (Ollama, vLLM, etc.), the agent reports "Provider authentication failed" on the next request. Gateway logs show: Unknown provider 'custom:<name>'.

Root Cause

Wrong provider name. The Hermes custom endpoint provider is registered as custom (bare), not custom:ollama, custom:vllm, or any custom:<name> variant. The suffix format is not recognized — custom:ollama and openai are both rejected as unknown providers.

Secondary cause: hermes config set for model.* keys can silently fail to persist (reports "✓ Set" but file shows old values). Always verify with grep -A5 '^model:' ~/.hermes/config.yaml.

Fix

1. Set the provider to custom (no suffix):

   hermes config set model.provider custom
   hermes config set model.base_url http://localhost:11434/v1
   hermes config set model.api_key ollama
   hermes config set model.default qwen2.5:14b
   

2. Verify the file:

   grep -A6 '^model:' ~/.hermes/config.yaml
   

   Must show provider: custom.

3. Test the Ollama API directly:

   curl -s http://localhost:11434/v1/chat/completions -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"model":"qwen2.5:14b","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"hi"}],"stream":false}'
   

4. Restart gateway (from OUTSIDE the gateway process — cannot restart from within):

   hermes gateway restart
   

Notes

• The provider custom is a reserved Hermes provider that reads model.base_url and model.api_key directly. It uses transport="openai_chat" (OpenAI-compatible API).
• If you set custom and still get the error, check with grep — the config set may have silently failed. Re-run the commands.
• Gateway restart must be done from a separate shell (SSH, desktop terminal) — not from within a gateway session.