diff --git a/sidecar/generations/queue.ts b/sidecar/generations/queue.ts
index 90021db..6beaebf 100644
--- a/sidecar/generations/queue.ts
+++ b/sidecar/generations/queue.ts
@@ -62,8 +62,18 @@ async function run(row: Generation): Promise<void> {
     // The adapter and model come from the ROW's own columns, and the key is read at RUN time: a key
     // rotated between queueing and running should be the new one, and a row queued before a key existed
     // at all runs the moment there is one.
-    const apiKey = keyFor(row.provider);
-    if (!apiKey) throw new Error(`No API key for provider "${row.provider}"`);
+    //
+    // Unless the adapter is KEYLESS, in which case there is nothing to read and never will be. This
+    // check used to be unconditional, and it is why a local model advertising `keyless: true,
+    // configured: true, usable: true` still failed at dispatch with `duration_ms: 0` — refused on a
+    // credential that cannot exist, before inference ever started.
+    //
+    // The defect was not the check, it was that there were TWO of them. `resolveForRequest` learned
+    // about keyless and this one did not, so the catalogue said yes and the runner said no. Anything
+    // that decides whether a provider is usable has to ask the same question, which is why the answer
+    // now lives on the adapter rather than being re-derived from the secret store at each site.
+    const apiKey = adapter.keyless ? '' : keyFor(row.provider);
+    if (apiKey === undefined) throw new Error(`No API key for provider "${row.provider}"`);
 
     const result =
       row.operation === 'edit'