diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci.yml b/.github/workflows/ci.yml
index a56378315..b1263acbb 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ci.yml
@@ -9,8 +9,8 @@ on:
     # `edited` re-evaluates the base-sensitive checks (main-base,
     # promotion-gate, paths, cleanup-paths) when a PR is retargeted. For the
     # required contexts a stale `skipped` run would satisfy the requirement
-    # outright; main-base is not required, so there the stale run instead
-    # leaves a mis-route unsignalled.
+    # outright; cleanup-paths is review-time defense rather than required, so
+    # there the stale run instead misleads the reviewer.
     types: [opened, synchronize, reopened, edited]
   push:
     branches: [main]
@@ -167,20 +167,18 @@ jobs:
     # the staging→main promotion or a reviewed non-feature lane — the collect
     # run branches, the maintainer's cleanup sweep, and the metrics-refresh /
     # cert-backtest / salience-replay PRs. This job runs (and fails) only on a
-    # PR to `main` from
-    # any other head; every legitimate PR skips it. It is not among `main`'s
-    # required contexts (`gate`, `paths`, `promotion-gate`) and cannot be yet: a
-    # `pull_request` runs the workflow from the merge ref, and the legitimate
-    # lanes are cut from `main`, whose own ci.yml has no `main-base` job — the
-    # context would never report and an auto-merging collect PR would hang
-    # pending forever. Requireable once this definition promotes into `main`;
-    # until then it goes red on a mis-route without blocking the merge. Fork
-    # heads never match the allowlist — outside contributions route through
-    # `staging` too. The
-    # emergency escape hatch is a repo admin editing the ruleset: deliberate
-    # and auditable. Expression `==`/`startsWith` compare case-insensitively,
-    # so a write-access branch named `Staging` skips the jail — a hygiene
-    # gap, not a hole: the PR still needs the human merge.
+    # PR to `main` from any other head; every legitimate PR skips it, and the
+    # skipped run satisfies the requirement. It is among `main`'s required
+    # contexts (with `gate`, `paths`, `promotion-gate`): a `pull_request` runs
+    # the workflow from the merge ref, the legitimate lanes are all cut from
+    # `main`, and `main`'s own ci.yml carries this job, so the context reports
+    # on every lane — and a mis-routed feature PR runs it, fails, and cannot
+    # merge. Fork heads never match the allowlist — outside contributions
+    # route through `staging` too. The emergency escape hatch is a repo admin
+    # editing the ruleset: deliberate and auditable. Expression
+    # `==`/`startsWith` compare case-insensitively, so a write-access branch
+    # named `Staging` skips the jail — a hygiene gap, not a hole: the PR still
+    # needs the human merge.
     if: >-
       github.event_name == 'pull_request' &&
       github.base_ref == 'main' &&
diff --git a/SECURITY.md b/SECURITY.md
index 5ef8d5ebe..78a69fb22 100644
--- a/SECURITY.md
+++ b/SECURITY.md
@@ -108,8 +108,8 @@ runbook, [docs/security.md](docs/security.md).
   — only a maintainer-installed App can apply a label that fires a workflow at
   all.
 - **Branch protection and the deployment boundary.** `main` requires a PR
-  passing `gate`, `paths`, and `promotion-gate`; the **data App** is the sole
-  bypass actor, so the deterministic `run-pull` writers push corpus facts
+  passing `gate`, `paths`, `promotion-gate`, and `main-base`; the **data App**
+  is the sole bypass actor, so the deterministic `run-pull` writers push corpus facts
   straight to `main` while everything agentic goes through that PR — enforced
   by identity, since the agent workflows authenticate as a separate,
   non-bypass **dev App**. Both rulesets require **zero** approving reviews, so
diff --git a/docs/pipeline.md b/docs/pipeline.md
index 41df995f6..ad3df7550 100644
--- a/docs/pipeline.md
+++ b/docs/pipeline.md
@@ -296,25 +296,23 @@ below describes the damage). The promotion gates target exactly those two.
 
 The mechanics:
 
-- **Feature PRs target `staging`** (AGENTS.md), and the routing rests on that
-  convention plus the maintainer's merge: `main`'s required checks are exactly
-  `gate`, `paths`, and `promotion-gate`. The **`main-base`** job signals a
-  mis-route — it runs, and fails, only on a PR to `main` whose head is not
-  `staging` or a reviewed non-feature lane (the collect run branches, the
-  maintainer's cleanup sweep, the metrics-refresh, cert-backtest, and
-  salience-replay PRs) —
-  but it is **not** a required context, so it goes red without being able to
-  block the merge. Its definition lives in `main`'s own ci.yml, so the context
-  reports on every lane into `main`; making it required is a pending ruleset
-  change that goes through the *Adding a required status check* procedure
-  below (docs/security.md inventories this).
+- **Feature PRs target `staging`** (AGENTS.md), and the routing is enforced:
+  `main`'s required checks are exactly `gate`, `paths`, `promotion-gate`, and
+  **`main-base`**. `main-base` is the merge-routing jail — it runs, and fails,
+  only on a PR to `main` whose head is not `staging` or a reviewed non-feature
+  lane (the collect run branches, the maintainer's cleanup sweep, the
+  metrics-refresh, cert-backtest, and salience-replay PRs); on those
+  legitimate lanes it reports `skipped`, which satisfies the requirement. Its
+  definition lives in `main`'s own ci.yml, so the context reports on every
+  lane into `main` (docs/security.md inventories this).
   Rulesets cannot constrain a PR's source branch, which is why the routing
   lives as a check at all, and why the check deters mistakes while the human
   merge is what catches sabotage: a PR that edits ci.yml runs the edited
   definition. Dependabot targets `staging` for the same reason. The `staging`
   ruleset itself requires a pull request plus the status checks that can report
-  on a staging-targeted PR — `gate` and `paths`; `promotion-gate` keys on a
-  base of `main` and is always `skipped` here — with the **repository admin
+  on a staging-targeted PR — `gate` and `paths`; `main`'s other two,
+  `promotion-gate` and `main-base`, key on a base of `main` and are always
+  `skipped` here — with the **repository admin
   role as its sole bypass actor** — a
   required-checks rule blocks direct pushes of commits that carry no passing
   check runs, so the admin role is the only identity that can land the sync
@@ -380,12 +378,12 @@ One-time setup (maintainer): create the branch from main (`git push origin
 main:staging`); add the `staging` ruleset — require a pull request plus the
 checks that can report on a staging-targeted PR (`gate` and `paths`),
 **repository admin role as the only bypass actor** (docs/security.md
-inventories it); and add `promotion-gate` to `main`'s required checks
-alongside `gate` and `paths` — it reports `skipped`, which satisfies the
-requirement, on every PR that is not the promotion. `main-base` stays
-**unrequired** until the *Adding a required status check* procedure below
-clears it, because requiring a context before that procedure confirms its
-producing job strands every collect auto-merge PR.
+inventories it); and add `promotion-gate` — and, once the *Adding a required
+status check* procedure below clears it, `main-base` — to `main`'s required
+checks alongside `gate` and `paths`. Each reports `skipped`, which satisfies
+the requirement, on every PR it does not gate; requiring a context before its
+producing job reaches `main` strands every collect auto-merge PR, which is
+what the procedure's ordering prevents.
 
 The `staging`
 *deployment environment* the freshness runs deploy to (deployment branches
@@ -399,7 +397,7 @@ failing loudly: a context nothing on `main` produces leaves every PR into
 `main` pending forever, and the auto-merging collect PRs hang first.
 
 ```bash
-scripts/promotion-gate.sh contexts <candidate>   # e.g. main-base
+scripts/promotion-gate.sh contexts <candidate>   # the context you want to require
 ```
 
 It reads `main: require PR`'s live required contexts and `main`'s own workflow
@@ -412,9 +410,9 @@ report an advisory fact. Run it with your own token.
 1. Land the job on `staging` and let it promote to `main` in an ordinary batch.
 2. `scripts/promotion-gate.sh contexts <candidate>` — proceed only on *ready to
    require*.
-3. Confirm a real PR of the kind you are gating reports the context. For
-   `main-base` that means watching one collect PR, since those auto-merge and
-   are what a mistake strands.
+3. Confirm a real PR of the kind you are gating reports the context. For a
+   context that must report on the bot lanes, that means watching one of their
+   PRs, since those auto-merge and are what a mistake strands.
 4. Add the context to the ruleset. Re-run step 2 afterwards: it now checks the
    context you just added.
 5. Update the surfaces that record the required set — the pinned list in
diff --git a/docs/security.md b/docs/security.md
index f62593ac2..9acf159fa 100644
--- a/docs/security.md
+++ b/docs/security.md
@@ -81,18 +81,17 @@ pre-registration record's commit ids.
   **absent** from this bypass list. Required approvals are `0` — the maintainer
   reviews at merge time by convention, not by rule; set to `1` if a second
   reviewer exists.
-  - Required checks are exactly `gate`, `paths`, and `promotion-gate` (which
-    reports `skipped` — satisfying the requirement — on every PR that is not
-    the staging→main promotion). **`main-base` is not among them.** It is the
-    merge-routing jail: it runs — and fails — only on a PR to `main` whose head
+  - Required checks are exactly `gate`, `paths`, `promotion-gate`, and
+    `main-base` (the latter two report `skipped` — satisfying the requirement —
+    on every PR they do not gate). `main-base` is the merge-routing jail: it
+    runs — and fails — only on a PR to `main` whose head
     is not a same-repo `staging` or reviewed non-feature lane, so a feature PR
     cannot ride around the promotion path by mistake. Rulesets cannot constrain
     a PR's source branch, which is why it is a check rather than a rule. Its
     job definition lives in `main`'s own `ci.yml`, so the context reports on
-    every lane into `main`; making it required is a pending ruleset change
-    that goes through the *Adding a required status check* procedure in
-    [pipeline.md](pipeline.md) — until it lands, routing rests on the
-    promotion convention and the maintainer's merge. `cleanup-paths` is
+    every lane into `main`; adding a context like it goes through the *Adding
+    a required status check* procedure in
+    [pipeline.md](pipeline.md). `cleanup-paths` is
     deliberately **not** in the required list — a cleanup PR is never
     auto-merged, so it is review-time
     defense-in-depth. **Not** `zizmor` — it is path-filtered
@@ -130,10 +129,10 @@ pre-registration record's commit ids.
   misbehaving writer that holds the data App's bypass token.
 - **`staging: require PR`** — the pre-merge branch every feature PR targets
   requires a pull request plus the required checks that can report on a
-  staging-targeted PR: `gate` and `paths`. (`main`'s third, `promotion-gate`,
-  is structurally always-`skipped` here — it keys on a base of `main` — so
-  requiring it would add no signal. The same is true of the `main-base` job,
-  which is not a required context anywhere.) **Bypass: the repository
+  staging-targeted PR: `gate` and `paths`. (`main`'s other two,
+  `promotion-gate` and `main-base`, are structurally always-`skipped` here —
+  each keys on a base of `main` — so requiring them would add no
+  signal.) **Bypass: the repository
   admin role only**, the escape hatch for a main→staging sync when the ordinary
   PR path is unavailable; its content is by construction already-gated `main`
   history merged with already-gated `staging` history.
@@ -436,9 +435,9 @@ job-env export disabled) and they appear only pre-agent — in the composite's
 launch step, whose env the background `corpus-serve` process inherits, and in
 the deterministic provisioning steps' step-scoped env. A guard step fails the job if any `AWS_*` credential is
 visible in the job env when the agent steps begin, and this also levels the
-engines: the Gemini sanitizer could never allowlist a credential, so corpus
-retrieval used to be an accident of harness — now every engine queries the
-same credential-free surface. What replaces the old residual: the sidecar is
+engines: the Gemini sanitizer could never allowlist a credential, so every
+engine queries the same credential-free surface rather than whichever one its
+harness happens to let credentials reach. What replaces the old residual: the sidecar is
 an **unauthenticated localhost HTTP surface**, so any process on the runner —
 including the injected agent itself, which is the *intended* client — can
 query the corpus and spend ranged-read egress through it. That is the same
diff --git a/src/fedcourtsai/required_checks.py b/src/fedcourtsai/required_checks.py
index e159cb920..c19c3b1c7 100644
--- a/src/fedcourtsai/required_checks.py
+++ b/src/fedcourtsai/required_checks.py
@@ -3,7 +3,8 @@
 A required context is satisfied only by a check run that *reports* on the PR,
 and the workflow that would report it has to exist on the branch whose
 workflows the PR runs. PRs into ``main`` from the bot lanes — the collect run
-branches, ``cleanup/*``, ``metrics/refresh``, ``metrics/cert-backtest`` — are
+branches, ``cleanup/*``, ``metrics/refresh``, ``metrics/cert-backtest``,
+``metrics/salience-replay`` — are
 cut **from** ``main``, so they run ``main``'s own workflow files. Requiring a
 context that no workflow on that branch produces leaves every such PR pending
 forever, and the auto-merging collect PRs are the ones that hang first: data
diff --git a/tests/test_required_checks.py b/tests/test_required_checks.py
index 94f02b0ed..67df8475e 100644
--- a/tests/test_required_checks.py
+++ b/tests/test_required_checks.py
@@ -190,7 +190,7 @@ def test_main_currently_requires_only_contexts_it_can_produce() -> None:
     required may lack a producer. A promotion that renamed or deleted one of
     these jobs would hang every PR into `main`, and this fails first."""
     workflows = Path(".github") / "workflows"
-    assert unproduced_contexts(["gate", "paths", "promotion-gate"], workflows) == []
+    assert unproduced_contexts(["gate", "paths", "promotion-gate", "main-base"], workflows) == []
 
 
 def test_odd_shapes_degrade_rather_than_raise(tmp_path: Path) -> None: