diff --git a/docs/port/DECISIONS.md b/docs/port/DECISIONS.md
index 27527230..308a49c4 100644
--- a/docs/port/DECISIONS.md
+++ b/docs/port/DECISIONS.md
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ dies, which is what this file is for.
 
 <!-- INDEX: generated by tools/port/index-decisions -- do not hand-edit -->
 
-312 sections. Search this before re-deriving anything.
+313 sections. Search this before re-deriving anything.
 
 * [P0 — the exporter, 2026-08-28](#p0--the-exporter-2026-08-28)
 * [P1 — Godot draws the screen, 2026-08-28](#p1--godot-draws-the-screen-2026-08-28)
@@ -323,6 +323,7 @@ dies, which is what this file is for.
 * [🔴 Correcting my own correction: none of the 1 530 is a question without content](#correcting-my-own-correction-none-of-the-1-530-is-a-question-without-content)
 * [The one load-bearing thing in the denominator thread, checked against the port](#the-one-load-bearing-thing-in-the-denominator-thread-checked-against-the-port)
 * [Quantifying the one thing neither agent can move](#quantifying-the-one-thing-neither-agent-can-move)
+* [Verified their merge-state claim rather than relaying it — and it improves the ask](#verified-their-merge-state-claim-rather-than-relaying-it--and-it-improves-the-ask)
 
 <!-- /INDEX -->
 ## P0 — the exporter, 2026-08-28
@@ -15368,3 +15369,41 @@ because nobody had written what "clicking through it" means.**
 mine to remove — the commands existed only in a header comment, then only in a
 log, and now the ask itself was unstated. **The remaining blocker is a person, and
 before that, a merge neither agent may perform.**
+
+## Verified their merge-state claim rather than relaying it — and it improves the ask
+
+They extended the merge quantification and I checked it from this side, because it
+is a **structural claim about my own repository** and I have relayed four of their
+asides unchecked this week.
+
+| | |
+|---|---|
+| their branch vs `main` | **329 ahead, 0 behind** — fast-forward ✅ |
+| files in common between the two change sets | **0** ✅ |
+| `git merge-tree --write-tree` of the two heads | single tree, **no conflicts** ✅ |
+
+Read-only: **nothing was merged, and merging stays the human's.**
+
+📌 **Their point about the sentence is the useful part, and it corrects my own
+framing from last iteration.** I wrote *"257 ahead, `main` 234 behind"* — which
+sounds like a backlog someone has to schedule. **The true sentence is "two
+fast-forwards over disjoint file sets, mergeable in either order with zero
+conflicts"**, and that is a decision that takes a minute. `RUNNING.md` §6 now says
+the second thing.
+
+⚠️ I had the numbers and still described the situation in the harder-sounding way.
+**A quantity is not a framing**, and I supplied one while leaving the other at the
+level of "this is blocked".
+
+### Closing the exchange
+
+Their last observation is the one I would keep from the whole week: **the counting
+question felt like the rigorous one to both of us and produced three rounds of
+correction over an interpretation nothing depended on; the meaning question
+produced a check that could have gone the other way on a screen this port ships.**
+
+📌 And the P5 finding is its companion: **the gate was partly open because the ask
+itself was unstated.** The commands existed, the log existed, the question lived
+nowhere — and **no instrument either of us built would ever have surfaced that.**
+Both are the same shape: the thing missing was not evidence, it was *what the
+evidence was for*.
diff --git a/docs/port/RUNNING.md b/docs/port/RUNNING.md
index 3d99854c..0b1eb156 100644
--- a/docs/port/RUNNING.md
+++ b/docs/port/RUNNING.md
@@ -116,6 +116,18 @@ is an ancestor, there is nothing to resolve. It touches **58 files**: the
 exporter and its examples, the Godot scripts, `authored/`, `tools/port/`, and
 `docs/port/`.
 
+✅ **And the two branches do not conflict with each other.** Verified from this
+side rather than taken on report: the Decoder's branch is **329 ahead of `main`,
+0 behind**, also a fast-forward; from the shared merge base the two change sets
+touch **zero files in common**; and `git merge-tree --write-tree` of the two heads
+returns a single tree with **no conflicts**. That command is read-only — **nothing
+has been merged, and merging remains the human's.**
+
+📌 So *"234 commits behind"* is the wrong sentence. The true one is **two
+fast-forwards over disjoint file sets, mergeable in either order with zero
+conflicts.** The first sounds like something to schedule; the second is a decision
+that takes a minute.
+
 Until that merge happens, **nothing decided here is reachable from `main`** — not
 the measured menu behaviours, not the audio, not this page. The same is true in
 the other direction for the Decoder's branch, which is where the contract