Bug

The SOUL.md aiPeer sync (added in #1969, landed via commit 9e0fc62) checks cfg.raw.get("aiPeer") which only reads the root-level aiPeer key from the raw config dict. But the Hermes setup wizard writes aiPeer under hosts.<host>.aiPeer (see cli.py line 736) — the canonical nested format documented in client.py.

For any user who ran hermes honcho setup AND has a SOUL.md whose first heading doesn't exactly match their configured aiPeer, the sync silently overrides the configured value with a sanitized version of the SOUL.md heading.

Concrete repro

Config (standard wizard output):

{
  "hosts": {
    "hermes": { "peerName": "Tiger", "aiPeer": "clawd" }
  }
}

SOUL.md:

# SOUL.md — Who I Am

I am Clawd. [...]

Expected: assistant peer id = clawd
Actual: assistant peer id = SOUL-md---Who-I-Am (sanitized first heading)

Result: honcho_profile, honcho_search, and auto-injected context all return empty because the session's assistant peer has no data — the user's actual conclusions/observations were written under clawd.

Fix

Also skip the sync when cfg.ai_peer was already customized from its default ("hermes"). The resolved cfg.ai_peer is set correctly from the host block at config load time in HonchoClientConfig.from_global_config() — the sync check just looked at the wrong level.

already_configured = (
    cfg.raw.get("aiPeer") is not None
    or (cfg.ai_peer and cfg.ai_peer != "hermes")
)
if hermes_home and not already_configured:
    # ... SOUL.md sync logic

Testing

• Verified locally: with nested hosts.hermes.aiPeer: "clawd" config + SOUL.md with # SOUL.md — Who I Am heading, the sync is now correctly skipped and honcho_profile returns the 40-item peer card for clawd.
• SOUL.md sync still runs when cfg.ai_peer == "hermes" (default), so existing behavior for users who never configured aiPeer is preserved.
• No change to root-level aiPeer check — backward compatible with flat configs.

Users affected

Anyone who ran hermes honcho setup (always writes nested) with a SOUL.md whose heading doesn't match their configured aiPeer.