Preserve numeric credential labels in auth removal

Resolve exact label matches before treating digit-only input as a positional index so destructive auth removal does not mis-target credentials named with numeric labels.

Constraint: The CLI remove path must keep supporting existing index-based usage while adding safer label targeting
Rejected: Ban numeric labels | labels are free-form and existing users may already rely on them
Confidence: high
Scope-risk: narrow
Reversibility: clean
Directive: When a destructive command accepts multiple identifier forms, prefer exact identity matches before fallback parsing heuristics
Tested: Focused pytest slice for auth commands, credential pool recovery, and routing (273 passed); py_compile on changed Python files
Not-tested: Full repository pytest suite

agent/credential_pool.py

@@ -760,11 +760,6 @@ class CredentialPool:
         raw = str(target or "").strip()
         if not raw:
             return None, None, "No credential target provided."
-        if raw.isdigit():
-            index = int(raw)
-            if 1 <= index <= len(self._entries):
-                return index, self._entries[index - 1], None
-            return None, None, f"No credential #{index}."
 
         for idx, entry in enumerate(self._entries, start=1):
             if entry.id == raw:
@@ -779,6 +774,11 @@ class CredentialPool:
             return label_matches[0][0], label_matches[0][1], None
         if len(label_matches) > 1:
             return None, None, f'Ambiguous credential label "{raw}". Use the numeric index or entry id instead.'
+        if raw.isdigit():
+            index = int(raw)
+            if 1 <= index <= len(self._entries):
+                return index, self._entries[index - 1], None
+            return None, None, f"No credential #{index}."
         return None, None, f'No credential matching "{raw}".'
 
     def add_entry(self, entry: PooledCredential) -> PooledCredential:

tests/test_auth_commands.py

@@ -279,6 +279,56 @@ def test_auth_remove_accepts_label_target(tmp_path, monkeypatch):
     assert entries[0]["label"] == "work-account"
 
 
+def test_auth_remove_prefers_exact_numeric_label_over_index(tmp_path, monkeypatch):
+    monkeypatch.setenv("HERMES_HOME", str(tmp_path / "hermes"))
+    _write_auth_store(
+        tmp_path,
+        {
+            "version": 1,
+            "credential_pool": {
+                "openai-codex": [
+                    {
+                        "id": "cred-a",
+                        "label": "first",
+                        "auth_type": "oauth",
+                        "priority": 0,
+                        "source": "manual:device_code",
+                        "access_token": "tok-a",
+                    },
+                    {
+                        "id": "cred-b",
+                        "label": "2",
+                        "auth_type": "oauth",
+                        "priority": 1,
+                        "source": "manual:device_code",
+                        "access_token": "tok-b",
+                    },
+                    {
+                        "id": "cred-c",
+                        "label": "third",
+                        "auth_type": "oauth",
+                        "priority": 2,
+                        "source": "manual:device_code",
+                        "access_token": "tok-c",
+                    },
+                ]
+            },
+        },
+    )
+
+    from hermes_cli.auth_commands import auth_remove_command
+
+    class _Args:
+        provider = "openai-codex"
+        target = "2"
+
+    auth_remove_command(_Args())
+
+    payload = json.loads((tmp_path / "hermes" / "auth.json").read_text())
+    labels = [entry["label"] for entry in payload["credential_pool"]["openai-codex"]]
+    assert labels == ["first", "third"]
+
+
 def test_auth_reset_clears_provider_statuses(tmp_path, monkeypatch, capsys):
     monkeypatch.setenv("HERMES_HOME", str(tmp_path / "hermes"))
     _write_auth_store(