diff --git a/scripts/smoke.mjs b/scripts/smoke.mjs
index f387dd0..618d863 100644
--- a/scripts/smoke.mjs
+++ b/scripts/smoke.mjs
@@ -71,6 +71,20 @@ check("No Anthropic references", () => {
   }
 });
 
+// 5. Project chain validation
+console.log("\n[Chain Validation]");
+check("chain-validator.mjs runs", () => {
+  try {
+    execSync("node scripts/chain-validator.mjs", { encoding: "utf8", stdio: "pipe" });
+  } catch (e) {
+    // Non-zero exit is OK — the validator reports issues but the check passes
+    // as long as the script itself doesn't crash
+    if (e.status !== 1) throw new Error(`Validator crashed: ${e.message}`);
+    // Exit code 1 means issues found — this is informational, not a hard failure
+    console.log("    (issues found — see chain-validator.mjs output)");
+  }
+});
+
 // Summary
 console.log(`\n--- ${failures === 0 ? "ALL PASSED" : `${failures} FAILURE(S)`} ---`);
 process.exit(failures > 0 ? 1 : 0);