feat(providers): add ai& (aiand) provider

[jethac]

What

Adds ai& (slug: aiand) as a bundled model-provider plugin. ai& serves a curated catalog of open frontier models through an OpenAI-compatible chat-completions endpoint at https://api.aiand.com/v1, so the generic chat_completions transport handles request/response/streaming/tool calls — the ProviderProfile is the core integration, following the same pattern as fireworks/gmi.

Why

ai& is live on models.dev (merged in anomalyco/models.dev#3327) under the aiand slug, so context windows, pricing, and capability metadata all resolve through Hermes' existing models.dev path — this PR only wires provider registration.

Configuration

# ~/.hermes/config.yaml
model:
  provider: aiand
  default: moonshotai/kimi-k2.7-code

# ~/.hermes/.env
AIAND_API_KEY=...

Aliases: ai&, ai-and. Endpoint overrides go through model.base_url in config.yaml (no AIAND_BASE_URL), per current policy (#61182 follow-up conventions).

Models (per models.dev catalog)

deepseek-ai/deepseek-v4-flash (default aux — $0.15/$0.25 per Mtok, 1M ctx), deepseek-ai/deepseek-v4-pro, moonshotai/kimi-k2.6, moonshotai/kimi-k2.7-code, zai-org/glm-5.1, zai-org/glm-5.2, qwen/qwen3.6-27b (free), openai/gpt-oss-120b, google/gemma-4-31b-it. The live /v1/models catalog is authoritative; the profile ships a curated agentic fallback_models list.

Wiring

• plugins/model-providers/aiand/: ProviderProfile + plugin.yaml (auth/config/models/doctor/metadata registries auto-extend from it)
• hermes_cli/providers.py: HERMES_OVERLAYS entry + aliases + label
• hermes_cli/models.py: CANONICAL_PROVIDERS (curated picker order) + alias map
• hermes_cli/config.py: OPTIONAL_ENV_VARS["AIAND_API_KEY"]
• hermes_cli/doctor.py: env hint + vendor-slug allowance (ai&'s catalog is exclusively vendor-prefixed IDs)
• agent/models_dev.py: PROVIDER_TO_MODELS_DEV mapping
• .env.example, website/docs/integrations/providers.md, website/docs/reference/environment-variables.md

Test evidence

• New: tests/plugins/model_providers/test_aiand_profile.py, tests/hermes_cli/test_aiand_provider.py (both resolvers, registry, overlay, config, doctor slash-form regression, credentials, runtime resolution, aux client), tests/run_agent/test_aiand_live.py (opt-in), discovery spot-check — 38 passed
• Neighboring suites: test_api_key_providers.py, test_fireworks_provider.py, test_gmi_provider.py (225 passed); test_model_metadata.py, test_models_dev.py, test_auxiliary_client.py, test_runtime_provider_resolution.py, test_overlay_slug_resolution.py (680 passed, 2 pre-existing qwen-oauth failures also fail on clean main @ 10160a180); test_doctor*.py + test_models.py (175 passed)

Live verification

One real completion driven through the Hermes provider path (resolve_provider_client('aiand')):

endpoint: https://api.aiand.com/v1/
model: google/gemma-4-31B-it
content: 'pong'
tokens: prompt=24 completion=2 total=26

[jethac]

As usual, the only reason this isn't passing is because I need my AUTHOR_MAP entry revised. All other tests pass!

[teknium1]

Thanks for the careful provider wiring, documentation, and focused test coverage. This automated hermes-sweeper review is closing the PR under the standing in-tree provider integration policy.

• The PR adds a new bundled ai& provider at plugins/model-providers/aiand/__init__.py (PR commit 93af74d07772e28092653b2035d3cfa8470bd573).
• AGENTS.md:126-136 and AGENTS.md:797-813 require third-party/vendor integrations to ship as standalone plugins rather than under this repository's plugins/ tree; this is a maintenance-boundary decision, not a quality judgment.
• The existing provider loader already discovers user plugins from $HERMES_HOME/plugins/model-providers/<name>/ (providers/__init__.py:91-99, 163-171). Please publish ai& as a standalone model-provider plugin that users can install there or through a pip entry point, and promote it in #plugins-skills-and-skins.

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Closed as not-planned per standing maintainer policy (in-tree-provider-integration). This is a design-direction decision, not a code-quality judgment — see the Contribution Rubric in AGENTS.md for what the project is looking for. If you believe this policy was misapplied to your change, comment here and a maintainer will take a look.

[jethac]

Repackaged as a standalone plugin per the provider policy: https://github.com/jethac/hermes-aiand

git clone https://github.com/jethac/hermes-aiand \
  "${HERMES_HOME:-$HOME/.hermes}/plugins/model-providers/aiand"

No core edits or config changes — the loader discovers it, and the auto-extension hooks (auth resolver/registry, picker, optional env vars, credentials, aux client) cover nearly everything the in-tree version wired by hand. The repo README documents the few cosmetic gaps (static alias maps, doctor hints) for anyone hitting them.