diff --git a/apps/desktop/src/plugins/hermes-bots/plugin.js b/apps/desktop/src/plugins/hermes-bots/plugin.js
index 290173a440..8428ce2538 100644
--- a/apps/desktop/src/plugins/hermes-bots/plugin.js
+++ b/apps/desktop/src/plugins/hermes-bots/plugin.js
@@ -1314,7 +1314,12 @@ async function relayConnections() {
   }
 }
 
-/** The agents living on one connection, as relay roster rows. */
+/** The agents living on one connection, as relay roster rows.
+ *  Returns null on FAILURE (transient RPC blip, slow socket) — distinct from
+ *  a genuine empty profile list. Conflating the two would push a fresh union
+ *  roster missing a LIVE connection's agents, and the gateway-side liveness
+ *  check (bot_relay._target_liveness) reads "absent from a fresh roster" as
+ *  definitively offline → false runtime_offline refusals (#93091 item 2). */
 async function relayAgentsOn(connection) {
   try {
     const res = await host.requestProfile(connection.route, 'profiles.list', { include_sessions: false })
@@ -1334,10 +1339,14 @@ async function relayAgentsOn(connection) {
       }))
       .filter(row => row.profile)
   } catch {
-    return []
+    return null
   }
 }
 
+/** Last good agent rows per connection id — reused when a fetch blips so a
+ *  transient failure never reads as "everyone on that machine went away". */
+const relayAgentsCache = new Map()
+
 /** Push every gateway the union roster of agents on the OTHER connections. */
 async function syncRelayRosters() {
   if (relayDisposed || relayRosterBusy) {
@@ -1356,10 +1365,30 @@ async function syncRelayRosters() {
     const agentsByConnection = new Map()
     await Promise.all(
       connections.map(async connection => {
-        agentsByConnection.set(connection.id, await relayAgentsOn(connection))
+        const agents = await relayAgentsOn(connection)
+
+        if (agents === null) {
+          // Transient fetch failure: reuse the last good rows for this
+          // connection (or contribute nothing this cycle) so the pushed
+          // roster never drops a live machine's agents — absence from a
+          // fresh roster means offline to the gateway-side fail-fast.
+          agentsByConnection.set(connection.id, relayAgentsCache.get(connection.id) || [])
+        } else {
+          relayAgentsCache.set(connection.id, agents)
+          agentsByConnection.set(connection.id, agents)
+        }
       })
     )
 
+    // Connections gone from profileRoutes are genuinely disconnected — drop
+    // their cache so a later reconnect starts from live data.
+    const liveIds = new Set(connections.map(connection => connection.id))
+    for (const id of [...relayAgentsCache.keys()]) {
+      if (!liveIds.has(id)) {
+        relayAgentsCache.delete(id)
+      }
+    }
+
     await Promise.all(
       connections.map(async connection => {
         const others = []
diff --git a/apps/desktop/src/plugins/hermes-bots/tests/bot-relay.test.mjs b/apps/desktop/src/plugins/hermes-bots/tests/bot-relay.test.mjs
index 86fb0d46ee..e4592fd85d 100644
--- a/apps/desktop/src/plugins/hermes-bots/tests/bot-relay.test.mjs
+++ b/apps/desktop/src/plugins/hermes-bots/tests/bot-relay.test.mjs
@@ -33,6 +33,29 @@ test('roster loop syncs OTHER connections agents to each gateway', () => {
   assert.match(sync, /id !== connection\.id/)
 })
 
+test('roster loop never conflates a transient fetch failure with an empty connection', () => {
+  // relayAgentsOn signals failure as null (not []) so a live machine whose
+  // profiles.list blips is not pushed as absent — the gateway-side liveness
+  // check reads "absent from a fresh roster" as offline and would refuse
+  // enqueues with a false runtime_offline (#93091 item 2).
+  const fetch = pluginSource.slice(
+    pluginSource.indexOf('async function relayAgentsOn'),
+    pluginSource.indexOf('async function syncRelayRosters')
+  )
+  assert.match(fetch, /return null/)
+  assert.doesNotMatch(fetch.slice(fetch.indexOf('catch')), /return \[\]/)
+
+  // syncRelayRosters falls back to the last good rows on failure and prunes
+  // the cache for connections genuinely gone from profileRoutes.
+  const sync = pluginSource.slice(
+    pluginSource.indexOf('async function syncRelayRosters'),
+    pluginSource.indexOf('async function drainRelayOutboxes')
+  )
+  assert.match(sync, /agents === null/)
+  assert.match(sync, /relayAgentsCache\.get\(connection\.id\)/)
+  assert.match(sync, /relayAgentsCache\.delete\(id\)/)
+})
+
 test('drain loop wires drain → deliver → reply with error fallback', () => {
   const drain = pluginSource.slice(
     pluginSource.indexOf('async function drainRelayOutboxes'),
diff --git a/tools/bot_relay.py b/tools/bot_relay.py
index 38250bd673..4f020f8eee 100644
--- a/tools/bot_relay.py
+++ b/tools/bot_relay.py
@@ -398,7 +398,7 @@ def write_reply(
 ) -> Path:
     """Persist the relayed reply (or delivery error) for the waiter.
 
-``reason`` is an optional typed failure code (see
+    ``reason`` is an optional typed failure code (see
     ``tools.bot_failure_reasons``, e.g. 'queued_expired'); when omitted and
     ``error`` is non-empty it is classified from the error text. The waiter
     only surfaces the human ``error``.