diff --git a/docs/remediation/KICKSTART.md b/docs/remediation/KICKSTART.md
index 662a7557..1bfd3c24 100644
--- a/docs/remediation/KICKSTART.md
+++ b/docs/remediation/KICKSTART.md
@@ -25,8 +25,15 @@ mechanically until Build 3 (rotation) makes it automatic.
 ## Standing invariants (never violate)
 
 - **North star:** deterministic-right-answer → code/gate; LLM only for judgment.
-- **Delivery gates:** author≠reviewer; PRE-REGISTERED diff-blind checks committed before reading the diff;
-  CI terminal-green; completion = merged PR + closed issue. rev-974 = the mosaicstack reviewer identity.
+- **Delivery gates — REFERENCE the canonical files, never restate them:**
+  `~/.config/mosaic/fleet/roles.local/merge-gate.md` (verdict authority) and
+  `~/.config/mosaic/fleet/roles/validator.md` (validator role). Order:
+  independent review (author ≠ reviewer, `rev-974`; pre-registered diff-blind checks committed before the
+  diff is read) → remediation → **CI terminal-green at the exact head by full step scan** →
+  **merge-gate verdict `GO`/`NO-GO`/`HOLD`**, commit-bound and **void the instant the head moves**, posted
+  durably with enumerated evidence under its own minted identity → **coordinator head-pinned merge**.
+  The queue guard runs but is **zero-information until RM-03 lands** (D-23) and must not be cited as evidence.
+  **After a `GO`, freeze pushes** — even a doc tweak voids the verdict. The coordinator assigns the gate seat.
 - **Dogfooding:** every fix validated against its live seed case (MISSION.md lists them).
 - **Tracking → DB** (hard cutover); do NOT re-invest in flat-file tracking. jarvis-brain PDA is off-limits.
 - **Git identity:** export `MOSAIC_GIT_IDENTITY=<your-seat>` so wrappers author correctly and survive respawn.
diff --git a/docs/remediation/MISSION.md b/docs/remediation/MISSION.md
index 9db7a63e..6a77de6f 100644
--- a/docs/remediation/MISSION.md
+++ b/docs/remediation/MISSION.md
@@ -186,6 +186,29 @@ orphaned context loader, a fail-open bypass. **Work = wire + consolidate + retir
 - **Project orchestrator** `mos-remediation` (this seat) owns the mission; coordinates under Mos (lead).
 - **Adversarial task decomposition:** `planner-opus` (robustness) + `planner-sol` (pragmatic) each decompose
   the plan independently; orchestrator reconciles into `TASKS.md`/DB tasks. Oppositional by design.
-- **Delivery gates (non-negotiable):** author≠reviewer, PRE-REGISTERED diff-blind acceptance checks committed
-  before reading the diff, CI terminal-green, completion = merged PR + closed issue. rev-974 = mosaicstack reviewer.
+- **Delivery gates — REFERENCE, do not restate.** The authoritative definitions live at
+  [`~/.config/mosaic/fleet/roles.local/merge-gate.md`](file:///home/hermes/.config/mosaic/fleet/roles.local/merge-gate.md)
+  (verdict authority) and
+  [`~/.config/mosaic/fleet/roles/validator.md`](file:///home/hermes/.config/mosaic/fleet/roles/validator.md)
+  (validator/certificate role). **Read them; do not paraphrase them.** Restating an authoritative source
+  is lossy every time — see D-26, where a subset restated from memory dropped a security precondition.
+
+  **Gate order** (the sequence only; the definitions are in the files above):
+  1. Independent review, **author ≠ reviewer** (`rev-974` on mosaicstack), with PRE-REGISTERED diff-blind
+     acceptance checks committed before the diff is read
+  2. Remediation of findings
+  3. **CI terminal-green** at the exact full-40 head, by **full step scan**
+  4. **Merge-gate verdict — `GO` / `NO-GO` / `HOLD`** (class `merge-gate`; "Ultron" is an _instance name_,
+     display data, never an authority source). **Bound to a commit and VOID the instant the head moves.**
+     `HOLD` persists until replaced; a `NO-GO` answered by an empty commit must be re-issued as `NO-GO`.
+     Posted durably on the PR under the gate's own minted identity, **enumerating** its evidence — a bare
+     "GO — gates verified" is non-conforming.
+  5. **Coordinator merge**, head-pinned. The gate never merges; it holds `push=False` by design.
+
+  ⚠ **The CI queue guard runs but is ZERO-INFORMATION until RM-03 lands** (D-23: it returns pass for every
+  possible input). It must not be cited as evidence by any gate, including the coordinator's own merge path.
+
+  **Assignment:** the coordinator assigns the merge-gate seat; the orchestrator does not. The orchestrator
+  owns getting a PR _gate-ready_.
+
 - **Compaction survival:** see `KICKSTART.md` in this dir — the resume procedure. Persist typed state, not transcript.
diff --git a/docs/remediation/TASKS.md b/docs/remediation/TASKS.md
index edb7868d..bf104421 100644
--- a/docs/remediation/TASKS.md
+++ b/docs/remediation/TASKS.md
@@ -146,6 +146,55 @@ exposure or changing provider protected-pipeline posture is a host security-post
 infrastructure authority. Nothing is blocked meanwhile — RM-02's head is unprivileged and fail-closed,
 the privileged experiment stays uncommitted and out of branch history.
 
+### D-26 — render-not-restate failed at maximal attention, committed by the rule's own enforcer
+
+**The definitive justification for making render-not-restate mechanical.**
+
+The mission's delivery-gate definition was **incomplete from setup**: the merge-gate verdict step was
+missing. Root cause, stated by the coordinator: when `MISSION.md` / `KICKSTART.md` were written, the
+gates were **restated from memory** — _"author ≠ reviewer, diff-blind checks, CI-green, merged-PR
+completion"_ — a subset of an authoritative document that was not open at the time. The omission then
+**propagated into every worker brief issued for the rest of the mission.**
+
+**Then it happened again, in the correction.** The message correcting the restatement error was itself a
+restatement: delivered from memory, without the source open, and it dropped or altered five things —
+
+| stated                                    | actual (`fleet/roles.local/merge-gate.md`)                                                                                                       |
+| ----------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
+| verdict is `APPROVE`/`BLOCK`              | **`GO` / `NO-GO` / `HOLD`**                                                                                                                      |
+| —                                         | **verdict is commit-bound and VOID the instant the head moves**; `HOLD` persists; an empty-commit answer to `NO-GO` must be re-issued as `NO-GO` |
+| —                                         | the gate verifies mechanical gates **itself from primary evidence** (reviewed-SHA == CI-SHA == head, full step scan, `Closes #N`, queue guard)   |
+| —                                         | the verdict must be **posted durably, enumerating evidence**; a bare "GO — gates verified" is **non-conforming**                                 |
+| cite `guides/CANONICAL-DELIVERY-CYCLE.md` | **that file does not exist** — the path was taken from another brief and cited without checking it resolves                                      |
+
+**And the omission was safety-relevant.** The role doc carries a hard install precondition: an unminted
+gate seat's credentials **fail open to the owner's admin account**, so its verdicts would post as admin —
+_"the exact mechanism of the #3084 breach this seat exists to prevent."_ Verified: gate identities existed
+for USC only, none for mosaicstack (D-15's class, on the seat that authorises merges). Assigning the gate
+at that moment would have reproduced the breach it was created to stop.
+
+**Why this is the definitive case, and not just a third instance.** The failure occurred when every
+condition favoured success: **attention was maximal** (a deliberate correction), **the actor knew the rule
+best** (its author and enforcer), and **the subject was the rule itself** — the message was _about_
+render-vs-restate while committing it. A discipline that fails under those conditions does not fail from
+carelessness; it fails because **human recall of a structured document is lossy by construction, and the
+loss is silent.**
+
+> **A rule that its own enforcer cannot follow while enforcing it is not a discipline. It is a
+> requirement for a mechanism.**
+
+**Requirement.** Governing documents must **reference** authoritative sources, never paraphrase them, and
+**every reference must resolve** — a dangling pointer to a non-existent authority is _worse_ than a
+restatement, because it reads as authoritative and cannot be checked. RM-02 registers both: a link-resolution
+case (every cited authority path exists) with a must-fail control, and the D-20 clause that prose asserting a
+property needs a negative control.
+
+**Resolved:** `MISSION.md` and `KICKSTART.md` now **reference** `fleet/roles.local/merge-gate.md` and
+`fleet/roles/validator.md` and state only the gate _order_. The precondition was cleared properly —
+`gitea-mosaicstack-merge-gate.token` minted at **least privilege**, independently verified by this
+orchestrator as the seat's own token: `pull=True, push=False, admin=False` — it **structurally cannot merge**,
+which is what a verdict authority must be.
+
 ### D-25 — self-verification by the audited party, a second time, one layer down
 
 RM-02's per-commit replay needs isolation. Docker denied Bubblewrap namespace creation; the obvious fix