Work through this in order. Most failures are “Agent is not pointed at Fabric,” “no process is registered as a GPU node,” or “Ollama is not running.”

1. Is Fabric up?

On the GPU / ops machine:

houdry version
houdry discover

If discover is empty, start the control plane:

houdry serve --listen 0.0.0.0:8080

Open https://127.0.0.1:8080/ for the cluster dashboard (trust ~/.houdry/server/pki/root_ca.crt). That page is not the URL you paste into Agent. Agent needs /v1.

houdry: command not found

Install from GitHub Releases and put ~/.houdry/bin on PATH. Windows: $HOME\.houdry\bin. See Installation.

Nothing on Wi-Fi

Guest networks often block client-to-client traffic. Use --server https://HOST:8080 on gpu register, and paste https://HOST:8080/v1 into Agent. houdry serve --no-lan-discover turns announce off if you only want a URL.

Browser warns about the certificate

Expected. First serve writes a local CA at ~/.houdry/server/pki/root_ca.crt. Trust that file. There is no HTTP on the control-plane port.

2. Is a GPU registered?

houdry gpu detect
houdry gpu register

Leave register running. detect with no devices means this box cannot take cluster jobs; it can still run serve while another machine registers. Do not substitute houdry gpu join. That is a snapshot, not a worker.

Pass --server https://127.0.0.1:8080 if discovery failed. Confirm serve is still running. First join: houdry node enroll create on the serve machine, then use the HDRY_… token on the GPU host. Do not pass that token as --token.

No models / empty answers

Start Ollama on the GPU host and pull at least one chat model (ollama pull llama3.2). Fabric’s working runtime is Ollama.

3. Is Agent talking to Fabric?

In Houdry Agent, Houdry server URL must be https://HOST:8080/v1 (HTTPS, and note /v1). Optional key houdry if you passed --token to serve.

Chat errors or uses a public model

You are not on the fabric provider. Pick Houdry server URL again. Do not leave a cloud endpoint selected.

TLS / certificate error in Agent

Copy root_ca.crt from the serve host (~/.houdry/server/pki/root_ca.crt) and trust it on the desk. Do not switch the URL to http://.

Connect succeeds, answers are slow or empty

No READY node: gpu register is down, or Ollama is not serving. Check the Fabric dashboard at https://HOST:8080/.

Knowledge files are ignored

Add them under Knowledge base in Agent, not only as a chat attachment. Standing rules live on the SOP entry.

I pasted https://HOST:8080 without /v1

That is the dashboard. Agent needs https://HOST:8080/v1.

I used http:// instead of https://

Fabric has no HTTP listener on that port. Use https://HOST:8080/v1.

4. Still stuck

Fabric issues: houdry-genomex/houdry
Agent issues: houdry-genomex/houdry-agent

Do not attach SOPs, credentials, or the whole ~/.houdry-agent tree.