diff --git a/scripts/check-main-verified.sh b/scripts/check-main-verified.sh
index 5e60d485b..c322dce93 100755
--- a/scripts/check-main-verified.sh
+++ b/scripts/check-main-verified.sh
@@ -61,10 +61,10 @@
 #
 # ── It fails OPEN, at every unknown ──────────────────────────────────────────
 #
-# No `gh`, an unreachable API, an unparseable answer: report and exit 0. This
-# is a monitor, and a monitor that can itself block a merge is worse than the
-# gap it watches — the same argument `main-red-claim.sh`'s header makes about
-# a claim check. Every unknown is loud, never silent.
+# No `gh`, an unreachable API, an empty run list, an unparseable answer: report
+# and exit 0. This is a monitor, and a monitor that can itself block a merge is
+# worse than the gap it watches — the same argument `main-red-claim.sh`'s
+# header makes about a claim check. Every unknown is loud, never silent.
 #
 # ── `--announce` reaches a person, on codeql-canary.sh's shape ───────────────
 #
@@ -233,6 +233,26 @@ elif ! runs="$(gh run list --workflow ci.yml --branch main --limit 60 \
   unknown "could not reach the Actions API"
 fi
 
+# Zero rows answers a different question than it looks like it answers. The
+# loop below opens every commit at `missing` and only a matching row moves it,
+# so an empty list does not report one absence — it reports the whole window as
+# absent, in one breath, with no row anywhere to contradict it. A read that
+# returned nothing cannot distinguish "no `ci` run exists for any of these
+# commits" from "the API declined to list them", and those are opposite states.
+#
+# `gh` exits 0 on an empty page, so the check above never sees it. On
+# 2026-09-09 one such page filed against the ten newest commits at once; each
+# of them had a completed, successful run, and the same query twenty minutes
+# later returned all sixty rows. The header's rule decides it: every unknown
+# exits 0 and says so, because a monitor that fabricates is one nobody reads
+# the second time.
+#
+# This is only the empty page. A list that carries rows but none for a given
+# commit is the outage this script was written to catch, and still reports.
+if [ -z "$runs" ]; then
+  unknown "the run list came back empty — this read listed no ci run at all for main, which cannot tell an outage from an unanswered query"
+fi
+
 now_epoch="$(date -u +%s 2>/dev/null || echo 0)"
 
 # Seconds since an RFC-3339 timestamp, or 0 when this platform's `date` will
diff --git a/scripts/test-main-verified.sh b/scripts/test-main-verified.sh
index 1764712e0..6512b0048 100755
--- a/scripts/test-main-verified.sh
+++ b/scripts/test-main-verified.sh
@@ -199,6 +199,35 @@ case "$out" in
   *) fail=$((fail + 1)); echo "FAIL an unknown exited 0 without saying so:"; echo "$out" ;;
 esac
 
+# Zero rows is the API declining to answer, not an answer that no `ci` run
+# exists for any of these commits. Read the second way, one empty page turns
+# every commit in the window into a finding at once: on 2026-09-09 that filed
+# against ten commits which each had a completed, successful run, and a monitor
+# that files falsely is one nobody reads twice.
+empty_runs_commits="$(commit $A 'a merge whose run the API did not list')
+$(commit $B 'and the merge before it')"
+if out="$("$SCRIPT" --fixture-commits "$empty_runs_commits" --fixture-runs "" 2>&1)" &&
+  [ -z "${out##*UNKNOWN*}" ]; then
+  pass=$((pass + 1)); echo "ok   an empty run list is UNKNOWN, not every commit missing"
+else
+  fail=$((fail + 1)); echo "FAIL an empty run list was read as a finding:"; echo "$out"
+fi
+
+# The report names the shape it could not read, so a reader of the log can
+# tell this apart from the outage the script exists to catch.
+case "$out" in
+  *"listed no ci run at all"*) pass=$((pass + 1)); echo "ok   ...and names an empty run list as the reason" ;;
+  *) fail=$((fail + 1)); echo "FAIL the unknown did not say the run list was empty:"; echo "$out" ;;
+esac
+
+# The other direction, so the guard above cannot be satisfied by refusing to
+# answer whenever a commit has no run: a NON-empty list that simply carries
+# nothing for this commit is still the outage this script was written for.
+want "a run list carrying nothing for the commit is still unverified" expect-fail \
+  "$(commit $B 'a merge with no run of its own')" \
+  "$A completed success $(now_iso)" \
+  "missing"
+
 # ── N: several commits, one bad ──────────────────────────────────────────────
 # The reported window is a run of merges, not one; a guard that stopped at the
 # first verified commit would have missed three of the four that day.