diff --git a/backend/src/db.rs b/backend/src/db.rs
index 62ccb9e..3031c5b 100644
--- a/backend/src/db.rs
+++ b/backend/src/db.rs
@@ -54,6 +54,31 @@ pub async fn create_pool(database_url: &str) -> Result<PgPool> {
 
     let pool = match PgPoolOptions::new()
         .max_connections(max_connections)
+        // Fail fast instead of parking. sqlx's default is 30s, which on a DB blip means every
+        // request AND all ~100 SSE session revalidations sit on the pool for half a minute
+        // before erroring — the app looks hung rather than degraded, and the backlog outlives
+        // the blip. Five seconds is far longer than a healthy acquire ever takes.
+        .acquire_timeout(std::time::Duration::from_secs(5))
+        // Keep a couple of connections warm so the first request after an idle stretch (the gap
+        // between setting the venue up and the guests arriving) doesn't pay TCP + auth.
+        .min_connections(2)
+        // Bound every statement server-side. Without this a single pathological query holds a
+        // pool slot indefinitely and no client-side timeout can take it back — the slot is only
+        // released when Postgres finishes. `lock_timeout` covers the same hazard for a row lock
+        // contended by, say, a release running against an in-flight upload.
+        .after_connect(|conn, _meta| {
+            Box::pin(async move {
+                // Two statements, two round-trips, deliberately. `sqlx::query` uses the extended
+                // query protocol, which permits exactly ONE statement per call — sending them as
+                // `SET a; SET b` makes every new connection fail, which surfaces as the pool
+                // never opening one at all and `create_pool` reporting a connect timeout.
+                sqlx::query("SET statement_timeout = '15s'")
+                    .execute(&mut *conn)
+                    .await?;
+                sqlx::query("SET lock_timeout = '5s'").execute(conn).await?;
+                Ok(())
+            })
+        })
         .connect(database_url)
         .await
     {
diff --git a/backend/src/main.rs b/backend/src/main.rs
index bf5a3b9..1329e24 100644
--- a/backend/src/main.rs
+++ b/backend/src/main.rs
@@ -129,6 +129,7 @@ async fn main() -> Result<()> {
         .route("/api/v1/feed", get(handlers::feed::feed))
         .route("/api/v1/feed/delta", get(handlers::feed::feed_delta))
         .route("/api/v1/hashtags", get(handlers::feed::hashtags))
+        .route("/api/v1/uploaders", get(handlers::feed::uploaders))
         // Social
         .route(
             "/api/v1/upload/{id}/like",
@@ -248,7 +249,7 @@ async fn main() -> Result<()> {
     // four subtrees. Deleting the route removes the vector outright rather than racing the
     // decoder; `/media/**` now 404s regardless of encoding.
     let router = Router::new()
-        .route("/health", get(|| async { "ok" }))
+        .route("/health", get(health))
         .merge(api)
         .layer(TraceLayer::new_for_http())
         .with_state(state);
@@ -268,6 +269,47 @@ async fn main() -> Result<()> {
     Ok(())
 }
 
+/// How long `/health` waits for the database before calling the app unhealthy. Deliberately
+/// short: the point is to answer "can this process actually serve a request right now", and a
+/// probe that blocks for the acquire timeout is itself a symptom.
+const HEALTH_DB_TIMEOUT: std::time::Duration = std::time::Duration::from_secs(2);
+
+/// Readiness probe — the Docker healthcheck, Caddy's `depends_on` gate, and the runbook's
+/// event-day `curl` all hit this.
+///
+/// It used to return the literal string `"ok"` and touch nothing. Every request in the app needs
+/// the database, so that answered a question nobody asked: the container reported healthy while
+/// every real request 500'd, and with no operator watching during the event there was no signal
+/// at all. Note what this does NOT buy: Compose's `restart: unless-stopped` does not react to
+/// healthcheck state, so nothing restarts on a red probe — this is a diagnostic, and it is
+/// deliberately not wired to automatic recovery, because the pool already heals itself across a
+/// Postgres restart (sqlx revalidates on acquire) and an auto-restart would truncate every
+/// in-flight upload to "fix" an outage that was about to clear on its own.
+async fn health(
+    axum::extract::State(state): axum::extract::State<AppState>,
+) -> impl axum::response::IntoResponse {
+    use axum::http::StatusCode;
+    match tokio::time::timeout(
+        HEALTH_DB_TIMEOUT,
+        sqlx::query("SELECT 1").execute(&state.pool),
+    )
+    .await
+    {
+        Ok(Ok(_)) => (StatusCode::OK, "ok"),
+        Ok(Err(e)) => {
+            tracing::error!(error = ?e, "health check: database query failed");
+            (StatusCode::SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE, "database unavailable")
+        }
+        Err(_) => {
+            tracing::error!(
+                timeout_s = HEALTH_DB_TIMEOUT.as_secs(),
+                "health check: database did not respond"
+            );
+            (StatusCode::SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE, "database timeout")
+        }
+    }
+}
+
 /// Hard cap on how long we wait for in-flight connections to drain after a shutdown
 /// signal. Uploads (streamed to disk) finish in well under this; the cap exists because
 /// long-lived SSE streams never end on their own and would otherwise keep the graceful