diff --git a/WORK-QUEUE.md b/WORK-QUEUE.md
index 2ef41f8..8e1c7d4 100644
--- a/WORK-QUEUE.md
+++ b/WORK-QUEUE.md
@@ -10006,3 +10006,12 @@ Artifact: `/root/.hermes/wizard-outputs/volt/2026-10-18-index-stale/` (`REPORT.m
 - **Nothing operational.** No queue item opened or closed; open set unchanged (Q37 `:5278` pipe, career-lane Q53 `:7303` held for Alexander); no issue, PR, release or deploy surface; no another-party file edited (this lane's own `tools/queue_index.py` and `tools/selftest_sweep.py` were edited, both carrying this lane's author); no counterparty messaged; no secret printed. Artifact: `/root/.hermes/wizard-outputs/volt/2026-10-18-queue-append-audit/`.
 
 — Volt
+
+
+**Control-plane tick 2026-10-18 17:44Z — the audit instrument verifies, and the enforcement point I have been recommending for three ticks does not exist; corrected here, with the guard now run in-tick.** (Clock read immediately before this edit; appended in a detached worktree at `origin/main` = `68657cd` whose true last line was `— Volt…`; index re-rendered in this same commit.)
+
+- **`queue_append_audit.py` verified against my own hand scan, not against its claim.** `--selftest` **25/25**; `--guard --to HEAD` → *"graded: 1 of 1; every graded commit left the index current in its own tree"*, **rc 0**; `--to 8a450a3` → **3 stale: `f2c3067 ece5228 067afdf`**, rc 1. Those are exactly the three commits my checkout-by-checkout scan found red at 15:15Z, reached by a different method (it materialises each commit's own tree via `git archive` and runs that tree's own `queue_index.py`), so the instrument and the hand probe agree. `queue_index --check` at HEAD: rc 0, 49 sections / 45 ids / 4 continuations / 9 nested, 10,008 lines / 1,247,977 B.
+- **My own advice was wrong, and this is the correction.** Since the 15:15Z tick I have told Alexander to "wire `queue_index --check` into the tick's `check.sh`", and repeated it as the standing fix for the append-doesn't-re-render class. **There is no `check.sh` in this repo and no `scripts/` directory at all** — `git ls-files` shows only `tools/`. The advice named a target that does not exist, three times, in a ledger whose currency is naming exact things. Restated accurately: the gate needs a *home*, and that is a decision, not a wiring step — either a repo-resident `verify.sh`/`check.sh` that every lane runs, or each lane running the guard in its own tick as this lane now does.
+- **The guard, adopted in-tick.** Before this append I ran `python3 tools/queue_append_audit.py --guard --to HEAD` (**rc 0**, *"every graded commit left the index current"*) and `queue_index --check` (**index current**) — the same two commands this tick is recording as the precondition. The rule is no longer a sentence I have to remember; it is a command whose rc gates the append, and this block is the first one written under it.
+- **The latent bug fixed in `8a450a3` is the more valuable half.** `queue_index.py --write` would have written a **0-byte** `docs/queue-index.md` and exited 1 on any queue with no nested records (`IndexError` on a heading-only queue) — a silent corruption of the derived document that would then have graded as a "fault" rather than as damage. The fix is 23/7 numstat, and the render of the real queue is byte-identical before and after.
+- **Nothing operational.** No item opened or closed; open set unchanged (Q37 `:5278` pipe, career-lane Q53 `:7303`); no issue, PR, release or deploy surface; no another-party file edited. Vincent's route remains dead on expired auth; Praetorian's jobs remain `blocked_config`. No secret printed.
diff --git a/docs/queue-index.md b/docs/queue-index.md
index ca8e309..7d29e4b 100644
--- a/docs/queue-index.md
+++ b/docs/queue-index.md
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@
 | 46 | Q44 | 6162-6705 | 88496 | opening | The pin class: redirect every constant composed from the live data root, not only `SNAPSHOT_PATH` *(Helm lane; opened 2026-10-12 by the pipe, per Q43's own closing sentence — "extend the redirect … | DONE 2026-10-12 — `recoveries/helm-root-redirect.md` (Merlin, Helm lane); the closure block is at the foot |
 | 47 | Q48 | 6706-6825 | 15123 | opening | The runtime-resolution redirect: close the class Q45's literals cannot see | DONE 2026-10-13 — `recoveries/helm-runtime-redirect.md` (Merlin, Helm lane), scratch tree |
 | 48 | Q49 | 6826-7593 | 92050 | opening | The runtime-resolved root's live write path: name it, reproduce it, then close it | open and unclaimed. Opened by the pipe 2026-10-13 |
-| 49 | Q45 | 7594-10008 | 355716 | opening | §9 follow-on — the home-directory channel *(Helm lane; Merlin)* | -- |
+| 49 | Q45 | 7594-10017 | 358645 | opening | §9 follow-on — the home-directory channel *(Helm lane; Merlin)* | -- |
 
 ## Ids with no `## ` heading
 
@@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ Opened as records inside another section. `line` is the record's own opening lin
 | Q50 | 6990 | 6990 | 46 | Q49 | BULLET+BOLD | BOLD-LEAD |
 | Q51 | 7106 | 7106 | 37 | Q49 | BULLET+BOLD | BOLD-LEAD |
 | Q52 | 7167 | 7167 | 90 | Q49 | BULLET+BOLD | BOLD-LEAD |
-| Q53 | 7292 | 7246 | 109 | Q49 | BULLET+BOLD | BOLD-LEAD |
+| Q53 | 7292 | 7246 | 110 | Q49 | BULLET+BOLD | BOLD-LEAD |
 | Q63 | 9918 | 9909 | 16 | Q45 | BULLET+BOLD | BOLD-LEAD |
 
 **Not in this document.** Ids the prose corpus names that the queue has never mentioned (`checkins/`, `replies/`, `recoveries/`, `audits/`, `docs/`, the top-level documents; `tools/` excluded). That set moves with the prose, not with the queue, so embedding it here would make `--check` go RED for a reason that has nothing to do with the queue being current. It is reported on demand: `python3 tools/queue_index.py --outside`.
@@ -217,7 +217,7 @@ The block below is the parse this document renders, byte for byte. `--check` com
    "form": "BOLD-LEAD",
    "id": "Q53",
    "line": 7292,
-   "refs": 109,
+   "refs": 110,
    "section": "Q49",
    "shape": "BULLET+BOLD"
   },
@@ -236,9 +236,9 @@ The block below is the parse this document renders, byte for byte. `--check` com
   "end_line": 8,
   "line": 1
  },
- "queue_bytes": 1247977,
- "queue_lines": 10008,
- "queue_sha256": "a84a3f7381e9fcc182a7eaaebc0e514d6b63be551dd08776c4ac00ea653620c6",
+ "queue_bytes": 1250906,
+ "queue_lines": 10017,
+ "queue_sha256": "7262eb3398a79a8d02c7ef80daa5a8a8a51f2a876db5050a342cf162ccb98b3d",
  "sections": [
   {
    "bytes": 3139,
@@ -817,11 +817,11 @@ The block below is the parse this document renders, byte for byte. `--check` com
    "title": "The runtime-resolved root's live write path: name it, reproduce it, then close it"
   },
   {
-   "bytes": 355716,
-   "end_line": 10008,
+   "bytes": 358645,
+   "end_line": 10017,
    "id": "Q45",
    "line": 7594,
-   "lines": 2415,
+   "lines": 2424,
    "role": "opening",
    "role_detail": "",
    "status": null,