fix: auto-load .env file at startup using python-dotenv

alpha_factory/run.py

@@ -2,8 +2,17 @@
 Alpha Factory — Entry Point
 Run: python -m alpha_factory.run [--dry-run] [--batch-size N] [--interactive]
 """
+import os
 import asyncio
 import argparse
+
+# Load .env file FIRST before anything else reads env vars
+try:
+    from dotenv import load_dotenv
+    load_dotenv()  # Reads .env from current directory
+except ImportError:
+    pass  # python-dotenv not installed; rely on system env vars
+
 from rich.console import Console
 from .config import load_config
 from .infra import ModelManager, interactive_model_select, LLMClient
@@ -20,12 +29,10 @@ async def setup_models(interactive: bool = False, hf_token: str = None) -> Model
     await manager.discover_all()
 
     if interactive:
-        # Let user pick models for each tier
         selections = interactive_model_select(manager)
         for tier, model in selections.items():
             manager.select_model(tier, model)
     else:
-        # Auto-assign best available
         manager.auto_assign_defaults()
 
     manager.print_status()
@@ -44,6 +51,9 @@ def main():
     config = load_config()
     config.batch_size = args.batch_size
 
+    # Resolve HF token: CLI arg > env var (loaded from .env)
+    hf_token = args.hf_token or os.getenv("HF_TOKEN")
+
     console.print(f"""
 [bold green]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/]
 [bold green]  ALPHA FACTORY v0.1.0[/]
@@ -53,13 +63,13 @@ def main():
   Mode:       {"DRY RUN (no BRAIN submissions)" if args.dry_run else "LIVE"}
   Batch size: {args.batch_size}
   Ollama:     {args.ollama_url}
-  HF Token:   {"✓ Set" if args.hf_token or __import__('os').getenv('HF_TOKEN') else "✗ Not set (cloud models unavailable)"}
+  HF Token:   {"✓ Set" if hf_token else "✗ Not set (cloud models unavailable)"}
 """)
 
     # Discover and select models
     manager = asyncio.run(setup_models(
         interactive=args.interactive,
-        hf_token=args.hf_token,
+        hf_token=hf_token,
     ))
 
     # Update LLM config with Ollama URL