A YAML parse error in ~/.hermes/config.yaml caused load_config() to print
one line to stdout (Warning: Failed to load config: ...) and silently fall
back to DEFAULT_CONFIG, dropping every user override (auxiliary providers,
fallback chain, model settings). Users only noticed when downstream
behavior misbehaved — see issue #23570 where a tab-indent error in the
auxiliary section caused aux fallback to use OpenRouter (depleted) instead
of the configured Codex/MiniMax chain.
Now: log at WARNING (so 'hermes logs' surfaces it), write a prominent line
to stderr, dedup on (path, mtime_ns, size) so concurrent loads don't spam,
and re-warn after the user edits the file. Both call sites (raw read +
merged load) route through the same helper.
Refs #23570
Teknium
228a4d11ae