In this article, a detailed theoretical examination is conducted for the steady, incompressible, MHD hybrid nanofluid (Al2O3/Cu–water) dissipative slip flow between non-parallel (i.e., diverging or converging) shrinking/stretching walls in the presence of appreciable thermal radiation. Appropriate similarity transformations have been applied to render the hybrid transport model conservation equations dimensionless. The diffusion flux approximation is employed for radiative heat transfer. The well-posed boundary value problem has been analyzed for solution bifurcations with a predictor homotopy analysis method (PHAM) along with stability analysis. The eigenvalues obtained predict the upper branch (Ist solution) to be physically acceptable. The critical values ( $$\chi_{c} \le \chi < 0$$ ) of stretching/shrinking parameter are evaluated by varying slip and magnetic body force parameters. The impact of significant parameters on skin friction coefficient, Nusselt number and entropy generation number is also visualized and elaborated in detail. With stronger magnetic field parameter (M), i.e., enhancement in magnetohydrodynamic Lorentz drag force, the existence domain of the dual solutions is shown to be expanded and the critical points of the stretching parameter ( $$\chi$$ ) for $$M = 0.1,0.5,1$$ are identified, respectively, as $$\chi_{c} = - 3.2455, - 3.2680,$$ $$- 3.2987$$ . The upper branch of skin friction, Cfr decreases as the volume fraction $$\varphi$$ increases whereas the lower branch increases with an increase in the volume fraction of copper nanoparticles. Entropy generation is observed to be elevated with stronger radiation, inertial effect (Reynolds number) and Prandtl number (i.e., lower thermal conductivity) whereas it is suppressed with increasing hybrid nanoparticle volume fraction and wall hydrodynamic slip effect. Magnetic field is found to induce a weak modification in entropy generation. Increasing angular coordinate $$\left( {\xi = \frac{\theta }{\beta }} \right)$$ is observed to elevate the entropy generation. The computations find applications in thermo-magnetic nozzle design, electromagnetic propulsion systems and electroconductive materials processing.