diff --git a/.woodpecker/ci.yml b/.woodpecker/ci.yml
index 35acff9e..ac68ef1f 100644
--- a/.woodpecker/ci.yml
+++ b/.woodpecker/ci.yml
@@ -7,11 +7,20 @@ variables:
   - &enable_pnpm 'corepack enable'
 
 when:
-  # PR + manual CI run on any branch — the pull_request pipeline is the merge gate.
-  # push CI is restricted to protected branches (main) so a feature-branch push no
-  # longer fires a redundant SECOND pipeline alongside its PR pipeline. This ~halves
-  # CI load on the storage-constrained runner with zero loss of gating (branch
-  # protection requires no push/ci status context; main still gets full push CI).
+  # PR + manual CI run on any branch: the pull_request pipeline is the merge
+  # gate (required status check on next; next is protected and the DEFAULT
+  # branch since 2026-08-19).
+  # Push CI runs on main only. next deliberately runs NO push ci: post-merge
+  # verification on next is carried by publish.yml's `verify` step
+  # (pnpm verify:release), which mirrors this pipeline's complete mandatory
+  # set step-for-step, enforced by scripts/verify-release.test.mjs. The two
+  # things push-to-next does not re-run, the postgres-path test and a
+  # push-ci status context, duplicate pre-merge coverage: PR CI tests the
+  # merge ref, whose tree equals the landed squash commit. Measured
+  # 2026-08-19: the 21 most recent push events on next each ran exactly one
+  # pipeline (publish), zero ci.
+  # Keeping push ci off next also avoids a redundant second full-suite run
+  # per merge on the storage-constrained runner.
   - event: [pull_request, manual]
   - event: push
     branch: main