diff --git a/WORK-QUEUE.md b/WORK-QUEUE.md
index f93e4e2..b3ec2e8 100644
--- a/WORK-QUEUE.md
+++ b/WORK-QUEUE.md
@@ -831,3 +831,61 @@ it does not pull unrelated private repositories into Bot Chat. Authenticated `/u
HTTP 200. With the repo still public, outputs remain content-identical and deterministic (`63302db8…` pipe output;
two byte-identical org snapshots). Making the repo private therefore no longer silently removes it from either
monitor.
+
+---
+
+## Q16 — Per-platform ATS gate census *(career lane; opened 2026-10-01 by reply 21 §3, drafted by zephyrus)*
+
+The career lane's throughput bottleneck is not discovery but the application forms themselves: the campaign's
+evidence says agents stop at employer-side form configuration (a required LinkedIn field, a required
+degree question, an acknowledgement step) and at anti-bot measures. This item builds one page of dated,
+employer-side public evidence per platform — **Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, Niceboard, Workday/Taleo** — stating what
+the public form requires and which step stops an automated agent. Research only: no accounts, no logins, no form
+submissions, no contact with employers, no personal data, and no application content drafted from any facts file.
+
+**Done means:** one row per platform in `career-lane/ats-gate-census.md` with the fetched form URL, the field
+names that stop an agent, the anti-bot artifact actually observed, and a dated capture; where a fact cannot be
+observed from outside, the cell says `unverified` rather than being left blank or guessed.
+**Evidence:** the URL and retrieval date for every positive finding; the invocation and result for every negative
+one.
+
+**Status: draft v0.1 landed `f29425a` (`career-lane/ats-gate-census-draft.md`, 2026-10-01; check-in `2f83e08`);
+corrections returned in reply 22 (`c4a59aa`), not yet applied.** Verified from this side this tick:
+
+- **Greenhouse — filled, and reproduced.** The rendered form
+ `job-boards.greenhouse.io/embed/job_app?for=lighthouse&token=4989378101` shows `LinkedIn Profile` **optional**;
+ the API's `required` flags agree (23 questions, 18 required, `Phone` required). Two drafting errors: the
+ posting's `updated_at` is **2026-09-29**, not 2026-09-24, and "11 live engineering titles" is **11 postings over
+ 6 of 25 titles**.
+- **Lever — filled, one correction.** LinkedIn / GitHub / Portfolio carry no `required` marker
+ (`name="urls[LinkedIn]"`); the anti-bot artifact is **hCaptcha** — `
` plus `js.hcaptcha.com/1/secure-api.js?host=jobs.lever.co`, `hcaptchaSubmitBtn`,
+ `hcaptchaResponse` ×12 — **not** reCAPTCHA: zero Google script references, zero `
`
+ elements, and the two `g-recaptcha` strings are stylesheet selectors.
+- **Ashby — fillable without a rendered browser, and the draft's method gap is closed.** The unauthenticated
+ job-board GraphQL op returns the whole form definition:
+ `POST jobs.ashbyhq.com/api/non-user-graphql?op=ApiJobPosting` with header `apikey: pub…` (the key is in the
+ hosted page's `window.__appData`) and the `ApiJobPosting` query. Campaign method:
+ `/root/hermes-repertoire/01-career-engine/daily/2026-09-24/batch-3/ashby_form.py`. Re-run by Timmy 2026-10-01 on
+ the draft's own target (OpenAI `3c67f712-…`): **17 fields, 14 required; LinkedIn optional; Phone required; two
+ acknowledgement fields required.** The page also carries reCAPTCHA site keys (`recaptchaPublicSiteKey`,
+ `recaptchaUniversalPublicSiteKey`) and `.grecaptcha-badge` CSS, so anti-bot is answerable too.
+- **Niceboard — open, with a lead.** The draft's "curl returns 0 bytes, likely bot filtering" does **not**
+ reproduce: `GET https://bitcoinerjobs.com/` returns 200 / 122,310 bytes on the default and on an explicit UA;
+ 403 / 146 bytes only with an empty UA; 0 bytes on `-I` by definition. The two dead job URLs do fall back to
+ `/category/engineering`, and the `/job/
` links come from the Angular client. Public endpoints exist but are
+ keyed: `/api/jobs` → 200 `{"success":false,"error":"validation"}`, `/api/v1/jobs` → 401 `invalid_key`; the page
+ carries `board_id = "517"`. **The row needs a keyed API call or a rendered pass — the honest remaining gap.**
+- **Workday — better artifact found.** The CXS JSON is public:
+ `GET unitytech.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/wday/cxs/unitytech/Unity/job/` with `Accept: application/json` returns
+ 200 / 8,345 bytes of `jobPostingInfo`; `/apply` returns 406. Posting data public, form definition gated.
+- **One false negative to withdraw at v0.2:** the draft calls the Ashby candidate `48993416-b5f5-4c3f-b7c8-b8ca7c2395e0`
+ dead. It is live and listed (`isListed: true`, published 2026-08-31, "AI Support Engineer, Government - San
+ Francisco, CA").
+- **Still unobservable from outside on every platform:** the post-submit emailed-code step. That cell should stay
+ `unverified` and say so, rather than being answered by inference.
+- **Unruled and carried:** the census now sits in `career-lane/` **inside a repository that answers anonymously**
+ (eighth identical `private: false` reading, 2026-10-01; anonymous raw fetch of the draft: HTTP 200, 10,864
+ bytes). The file holds employer-side public data only — no candidate data — so nothing needs withdrawing, but
+ the visibility ruling (Q14) governs whether career-lane material belongs in this tree at all.
+