diff --git a/docs/doctoring/hourly-free-pool-policy-fixture-rca.md b/docs/doctoring/hourly-free-pool-policy-fixture-rca.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..ceb422c58d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/doctoring/hourly-free-pool-policy-fixture-rca.md
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+# Hourly free-pool policy fixture RCA — 2026-09-01
+
+## Scope
+
+Protected `main` at `960b08456de4c87a5a833938220d6d83f68d61c1` failed `Hourly NVIDIA NIM Review Repair` run `33498263904`, job `99825357734`, in step `Verify hourly scheduler and NVIDIA NIM autofix contracts`.
+
+## Exact failure evidence
+
+The hosted pytest run produced two deterministic failures in `tests/test_contextual_orchestrator_review_policy.py` and then missed the 100% policy coverage gate:
+
+- `test_build_catalog_applies_account_cap` still expected two `openai` rows to be admitted to the default `orchestrator/free` pool and raised `KeyError: 'openai'` after the rows were correctly excluded.
+- `test_build_catalog_respects_limit` constructed its twenty free candidates entirely from `openai`; the post-#1587 policy correctly rejected that free-pool source set and raised `PolicyError: no free model route is available ... orchestrator/free would fail closed`.
+
+The failure is therefore stale test-fixture evidence, not a product regression, provider/network transient, permission failure, or expected governance failure. The triggering protected-main commit is merge commit `960b08456de4c87a5a833938220d6d83f68d61c1` from PR #1587, whose intended contract keeps all provider credentials globally discoverable while admitting only `BYTEZ_API_KEY`, `NVIDIA_NIM_API_KEY`, `NVIDIA_NIM_API_KEY_SUB`, and `OPENROUTER_API_KEY` sources to `orchestrator/free`. PR #1587 added dedicated credential-boundary regressions but did not update these two older generic policy fixtures.
+
+## Smallest repair
+
+Change only the two generic fixtures so the behaviors they are intended to test—per-account limiting and total catalog limiting—use an authorized free-pool provider (`openrouter`) instead of the deliberately excluded `openai` source. No production policy, warning, security gate, review gate, coverage threshold, or fail-closed behavior is changed.
+
+RED evidence is the protected-main run above. The repair commit is `7190562128067983c864fd56a3c4c13ea345a351`; compare against protected main is exactly three additions and three deletions in one test file.
+
+## Related but separate blocker
+
+Open PR #1591 is not a safe substitute for this fixture repair. Although its exact-head hourly self-test currently succeeds, unresolved independent review evidence shows that its admission-only catalog can return more than twelve agents while `contextual_orchestrator_review_launcher._bounded_fallback_catalog_limit()` still rejects `primary_count > 12`, aborting sidecar startup. That production-path issue must be repaired and re-reviewed separately rather than bypassed to make protected main green.
+
+## Verification
+
+Hosted exact-head Checks on the repair PR are authoritative. After merge, rerun the failed protected-main workflow and re-fetch the exact protected-main Checks. Pending, queued, skipped, or stale predecessor evidence is not treated as success.
diff --git a/tests/test_contextual_orchestrator_review_policy.py b/tests/test_contextual_orchestrator_review_policy.py
index b10fc4a0b9..4cda949897 100644
--- a/tests/test_contextual_orchestrator_review_policy.py
+++ b/tests/test_contextual_orchestrator_review_policy.py
@@ -354,7 +354,7 @@ def test_build_catalog_applies_account_cap() -> None:
             for i in range(6)
         ]
         + [
-                {"provider": "openai", "model": f"o{i}", "agent_id": f"oa_{i}", "is_free": True, **FREE_PRICE}
+                {"provider": "openrouter", "model": f"o{i}", "agent_id": f"or_{i}", "is_free": True, **FREE_PRICE}
             for i in range(3)
         ]
     }
@@ -367,14 +367,14 @@ def test_build_catalog_applies_account_cap() -> None:
         account_counts[account] = account_counts.get(account, 0) + 1
     assert account_counts["nvidia_nim"] == 2
     assert account_counts["nvidia_nim_sub"] == 2
-    assert account_counts["openai"] == 2
+    assert account_counts["openrouter"] == 2
 
 
 def test_build_catalog_respects_limit() -> None:
     """The catalog never exceeds the configured agent limit."""
     report = {
         "models": [
-                {"provider": "openai", "model": f"m{i}", "agent_id": f"oa_{i}", "is_free": True, **FREE_PRICE}
+                {"provider": "openrouter", "model": f"m{i}", "agent_id": f"or_{i}", "is_free": True, **FREE_PRICE}
             for i in range(20)
         ]
     }