diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 2dde03b58..d1713314e 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -118,6 +118,7 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 * **proxy:** run a cold-start fast pass before background-compression deferral so byte-identical freeze doesn't lock sessions to the uncompressed transcript. Since #1850, a session's provider-cached prefix is frozen in whatever form its cold start forwarded; deferring the WHOLE pipeline (`HEADROOM_BACKGROUND_COMPRESSION=1`, frozen=0, ≥50k tokens) therefore cached the raw transcript and forfeited the session's compression savings for its lifetime — including sub-second lossless wins like `read_lifecycle` stale-read drops, observed in the field as sessions permanently stuck at 0 savings. The deferral branch now runs the pipeline synchronously with the new `skip_kompress=True` kwarg (everything except the Kompress ML stage — the only stage that can blow the request budget per #1171) under a bounded fast-pass budget (`HEADROOM_COLD_START_FAST_PASS_TIMEOUT_SECONDS`, default 10s), forwards the pruned form, and defers only Kompress to the background job (tagged `deferred:kompress_background`). Fail-open: on fast-pass timeout/error the request forwards uncompressed exactly as before. Units routed to Kompress under `skip_kompress` take the same fallback as when the model isn't ready.
 * **init/codex:** don't overwrite the user's `hooks.json`. `_ensure_codex_hooks` wrote a fresh payload containing only Headroom's two hooks, wholesale-replacing `~/.codex/hooks.json` — so any user-managed Codex hooks (and other top-level keys) were silently destroyed on `headroom init codex`. It now read-merges: existing entries are preserved, Headroom's are deduped on the `headroom-init-codex` marker and appended, matching `_ensure_claude_hooks` / `_ensure_copilot_hooks`.
 * **ccr:** detect `read_lifecycle` stale/superseded markers in the retrieve-tool injector so they stay redeemable. Those markers (`[Read content stale: … Retrieve original: hash=<hash>]`) store the original bytes in the CCR store under a valid hash, but none of `CCRToolInjector`'s patterns matched them — every pattern required the word "compressed" or the `<<ccr:` form. So on a frozen-prefix turn (both `read_lifecycle` and prefix freezing are on by default) the injector reported no compressed content, the `headroom_retrieve` tool was not injected, and the model was handed a marker advertising `Retrieve original: hash=X` with no tool to redeem it — silent data loss for stale reads, where retrieval is the only way to recover the original-at-read-time content (the exact case the #1006 guard exists to prevent). Added a pattern matching the load-bearing `Retrieve original: hash=` phrase, aligning the injector with the sibling `read_maturation` marker that was already (incidentally) detected.
+* **install:** don't crash `headroom install status` when the health payload's `config` is a non-dict. The command did `payload.get('config', {}).get('backend', manifest.backend)`, but `dict.get(..., {})` only defaults on a *missing* key — a present-but-non-dict `config` (`null`, a string, a list, e.g. when a different or older service is answering on the port) reached the chained `.get('backend', ...)` and raised `AttributeError`, crashing the command with a raw traceback. The value is now guarded with `isinstance(config, dict)` before the lookup, mirroring `wrap.py`'s `_proxy_health_config`, so it falls back to the manifest's backend.
 * **telemetry:** only advance the usage-report baseline after a confirmed 200. `UsageReporter._report_usage` sends usage as a delta against the last snapshot, but it called `_snapshot_metrics()` (and advanced `_last_report_time`) unconditionally after the POST — including when the send returned non-200 or raised. So a report that failed to reach the cloud (which the module is explicitly designed to tolerate) still rebased the baseline, permanently dropping that window's requests/tokens from usage-based billing/quota; the next report started from the advanced baseline and never re-included them. The baseline now advances only on a 200, so a failed send leaves the window intact for the next report to retry.
 * **savings:** stop the durable savings ledger from billing free (0-priced) models at the `$3/M` fallback. `estimate_cost_usd` guarded the litellm estimate with `if priced > 0`, so a genuinely free model — where `_estimate_compression_savings_usd` correctly returns `0.0` — was treated as "unpriced" and fell through to the blended fallback rate, writing phantom cost-avoided into the JSONL ledger and surfacing it in `headroom savings`. The ledger now trusts the estimate verbatim for known models (it already falls back internally for models litellm can't price and returns `0.0` for free ones), fixing the same defect at this call site that was already fixed inside the helper.
 * **init/codex:** stop `headroom init codex` from deleting per-profile provider settings. `_ensure_codex_provider` removed the root-level `model_provider`/`openai_base_url` (which init owns) with a multiline regex that matched those keys in **every** table, so a user's `[profiles.*]` overrides (e.g. `[profiles.work] model_provider = "azure"`) were silently stripped and those profiles fell through to the injected `"headroom"` default — config corruption. The strip is now scoped to the document root (everything before the first table header), so per-profile overrides are preserved while init still replaces a root-level assignment.
diff --git a/headroom/cli/install.py b/headroom/cli/install.py
index 8ba43ca52..77aa18ab3 100644
--- a/headroom/cli/install.py
+++ b/headroom/cli/install.py
@@ -337,7 +337,15 @@ def install_status(profile: str) -> None:
     click.echo(f"Healthy:    {'yes' if probe_ready(manifest.health_url) else 'no'}")
     if payload and isinstance(payload, dict):
         click.echo(f"Health URL: {manifest.health_url.replace('/readyz', '/health')}")
-        click.echo(f"Backend:    {payload.get('config', {}).get('backend', manifest.backend)}")
+        # `config` may be a non-dict (null / string / list) if a different or
+        # older service is answering on the port. `payload.get('config', {})`
+        # only defaults on a MISSING key, so a present-but-non-dict value would
+        # reach `.get('backend', ...)` and crash with AttributeError. Guard on
+        # isinstance, mirroring wrap.py's _proxy_health_config.
+        config = payload.get("config")
+        if not isinstance(config, dict):
+            config = {}
+        click.echo(f"Backend:    {config.get('backend', manifest.backend)}")
 
 
 @install.command("start")
diff --git a/tests/test_cli/test_install_cli.py b/tests/test_cli/test_install_cli.py
index f52cc0b85..95c05046f 100644
--- a/tests/test_cli/test_install_cli.py
+++ b/tests/test_cli/test_install_cli.py
@@ -137,6 +137,33 @@ def test_install_status_includes_backend_from_health_probe(monkeypatch) -> None:
     assert "Backend:    anthropic" in result.output
 
 
+def test_install_status_survives_non_dict_config(monkeypatch) -> None:
+    """A health payload whose `config` is a non-dict (e.g. a different service
+    answering on the port returns config: null) must not crash the command."""
+    runner = CliRunner()
+
+    class Manifest:
+        profile = "default"
+        preset = "persistent-service"
+        runtime_kind = "python"
+        supervisor_kind = "service"
+        scope = "user"
+        port = 8787
+        backend = "anthropic"
+        health_url = "http://127.0.0.1:8787/readyz"
+
+    monkeypatch.setattr("headroom.cli.install.load_manifest", lambda profile: Manifest())
+    monkeypatch.setattr("headroom.cli.install.runtime_status", lambda manifest: "running")
+    monkeypatch.setattr("headroom.cli.install.probe_ready", lambda url: True)
+    monkeypatch.setattr("headroom.cli.install.probe_json", lambda url: {"config": None})
+
+    result = runner.invoke(main, ["install", "status"])
+
+    # No AttributeError; Backend falls back to the manifest value.
+    assert result.exit_code == 0, result.output
+    assert "Backend:    anthropic" in result.output
+
+
 def test_install_restart_uses_internal_helpers(monkeypatch) -> None:
     runner = CliRunner()
     calls: list[str] = []