fix(community): initialize InfoQuest TLS clients off the event loop - #7899

Why

InfoQuest's fetch, web_search_raw_results and image_search_raw_results constructed httpx.AsyncClient inline in their coroutines. httpx builds the default transport in AsyncClient.__init__, and that synchronously loads the TLS trust store (~125 ms per call in a local probe) on the agent event loop. Requests were already asynchronous; only setup was blocking.

RAGFlow and LightRAG (#7738) and You.com, GroundRoute and Webz (#7889) already construct their clients with asyncio.to_thread. The #7738 review explicitly named infoquest/infoquest_client.py:82 among the remaining clients and suggested a follow-up; #7889 was limited to its three adapters. InfoQuest migrated to httpx.AsyncClient in #5782, before both sweeps.

What changed

• All three InfoQuest client-construction sites now use async with await asyncio.to_thread(httpx.AsyncClient, follow_redirects=True) as client:, matching the merged siblings. Endpoints, headers, payloads, timeouts, redirects, error paths and response handling are unchanged; requests and async with cleanup stay on the event loop.
• backend/tests/blocking_io/test_search_client_ssl.py gains a parametrized regression for all three methods: it asserts TLS context creation runs off the loop thread, send runs on it, and the client is closed exactly once.
• backend/AGENTS.md:139 and README.md:253 now list InfoQuest among the providers that initialize HTTPX clients off-loop.

Surface area

Backend harness runtime (community search provider); no API shape, response, or valid-call behavior change. It adds one executor dispatch per request, the same trade-off the merged siblings carry.

Verification

From backend/:

• pytest tests/blocking_io/test_search_client_ssl.py -q → 8 passed.
• Parent a46d9221 with the new test → 3 failed, 5 passed; each fails with AssertionError: TLS trust loading blocks the event loop (for fetch, the provider catches the exception and returns Error: fetch API failed: TLS trust loading blocks the event loop...).
• pytest tests/blocking_io/test_search_client_ssl.py tests/test_infoquest_client.py tests/test_infoquest_http_timeout.py -q → 75 passed.
• Thread probe against the real methods: ssl.create_default_context on a worker thread (on_loop=False); send and transport __aexit__ on the loop (on_loop=True).
• ruff check / ruff format --check clean; scripts/check_agent_guidance.py --base-ref a46d9221 --head-ref 0116d6cd exits 0 (only pre-existing soft-chain warnings).
• Independent review reran red/green and the probe in a separate worktree; 5 repeat runs of the new test were stable.

AI assistance

Tool(s) used: Claude Code

How you used it: AI reproduced the event-loop TLS load, wrote the regression test (red on parent) and the to_thread change, and ran the verification above. An independent review reran the red/green and thread probe in a separate worktree.

• I've read and understand every line of this change and take responsibility for it — it's not unreviewed AI output.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code