diff --git a/docs/remediation/TASKS.md b/docs/remediation/TASKS.md
index 4b9a4ca6..58e68115 100644
--- a/docs/remediation/TASKS.md
+++ b/docs/remediation/TASKS.md
@@ -115,9 +115,24 @@ Two things this establishes:
    small instance of the mission's own class — an unverified gate — occurring inside the mechanism
    built to catch unverified gates.
 
-**Requirement on RM-02:** the gate registry must itself be exercised. A registered case that cannot
-fail (or cannot run) is as inert as an unregistered one, and the registry check must detect that —
-`--dry-run`-style self-verification of every registered case, not merely its presence.
+**Requirement on RM-02 (non-negotiable, sharpened by Mos).** The registry must **self-verify** that
+every registered case demonstrably **runs** and demonstrably **fails on a known-bad input**.
+Presence in the registry is **not** evidence. **A check is not trusted until it has been shown to
+fail.** This is mutation testing / negative control applied _at the registry level_ — meaning
+**the conformance harness must itself be conformance-tested.** A registered case that cannot fail, or
+cannot run, is exactly as inert as an unregistered one, and the registry check must detect that
+itself rather than assume it.
+
+**Requirement on RM-55.** The same recursion applies to the harness: it must be observed red before
+its green is worth anything (OPUS R-063 AC1 already states this; D-8 is the empirical case for it).
+
+**Second, equally load-bearing lesson — reviewer disclosure is what makes a review trustworthy.**
+rev-974 could have silently swapped in a working fixture and reported `AC2 PASS`. Nothing in the
+process would have caught it, and the resulting green would have certified nothing — on the very task
+whose subject is gates that only appear to work. The brief's instruction — _"do not adjust a check to
+fit the diff; if it is genuinely unrunnable as specified, say so explicitly and explain why rather
+than silently substituting your own"_ — is therefore not boilerplate. It is the clause that makes a
+PASS mean something, and it must appear in **every** reviewer brief this mission issues.
 
 ### D-7 — shared-tmpfs contention → cascading ENOSPC (live incident, 2026-07-31)