diff --git a/gateway/gateway-controller/cmd/controller/main.go b/gateway/gateway-controller/cmd/controller/main.go
index ec2549f67..45c332f3f 100644
--- a/gateway/gateway-controller/cmd/controller/main.go
+++ b/gateway/gateway-controller/cmd/controller/main.go
@@ -469,6 +469,22 @@ func main() {
 		slog.Int("total_apis", len(loadedAPIs)),
 		slog.Int("configs_loaded", loadedCount))
 
+	// Regenerate the Envoy xDS snapshot now that the transformers are wired (above)
+	// and runtime configs are loaded. The initial snapshot generated earlier ran
+	// before SetTransformers, so it fell back to the legacy translation path — naming
+	// clusters "cluster_<scheme>_<host>" and routes without the header-hash
+	// discriminator. The policy engine's resources are keyed off the transformer path
+	// ("upstream_<name>_<host>_<port>" clusters, header-hashed route names), so without
+	// this rebuild Envoy and the policy engine disagree: cluster-header APIs fail with
+	// cluster_not_found and header-matched routes 500 with "policy chain not found"
+	// until the first redeploy happens to re-run the transformer path.
+	log.Info("Regenerating xDS snapshot via transformer path after wiring transformers")
+	ctx, cancel = context.WithTimeout(context.Background(), 10*time.Second)
+	if err := snapshotManager.UpdateSnapshot(ctx, ""); err != nil {
+		log.Warn("Failed to regenerate xDS snapshot after transformer init", slog.Any("error", err))
+	}
+	cancel()
+
 	// Generate initial policy snapshot
 	log.Info("Generating initial policy xDS snapshot")
 	ctx, cancel = context.WithTimeout(context.Background(), 10*time.Second)
diff --git a/gateway/gateway-controller/pkg/xds/translator.go b/gateway/gateway-controller/pkg/xds/translator.go
index ae27e6832..580a335b7 100644
--- a/gateway/gateway-controller/pkg/xds/translator.go
+++ b/gateway/gateway-controller/pkg/xds/translator.go
@@ -747,6 +747,17 @@ func (t *Translator) TranslateConfigs(
 					routesList, clusterList, err = t.eventGatewayHooks.TranslateWebSubAPI(t, cfg, configs)
 				}
 			} else {
+				// No transformer produced routes for a non-WebSub kind. If the kind has
+				// no transformer registered at all, we silently fell back here — a nil or
+				// unwired transformer map returns ok=false at the check above, with no
+				// error. Surface it, because the resulting Envoy snapshot uses legacy
+				// cluster/route naming that the policy engine's transformer-path resources
+				// don't match. (A transformer that errored is already logged above.)
+				if _, ok := t.transformers[cfg.Kind]; !ok {
+					log.Warn("No transformer registered for API kind; using legacy translation path",
+						slog.String("kind", cfg.Kind),
+						slog.String("id", cfg.UUID))
+				}
 				routesList, clusterList, err = t.translateAPIConfig(cfg, configs)
 			}
 			if err != nil {