diff --git a/.github/workflows/deploy-pages.yml b/.github/workflows/deploy-pages.yml
index 4be9d4c..f541b82 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/deploy-pages.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/deploy-pages.yml
@@ -23,8 +23,24 @@ jobs:
       - run: npm ci
       - name: Publication gate
         run: node tools/check-docs.mjs
+      # Two outcomes, two meanings. A mismatch is documentation drift and must
+      # never publish. Unreachable means a runner could not open a socket to
+      # the product, which says nothing about the facts and used to block the
+      # publication of correct documentation while the site served an older
+      # build. The facts stay guarded either way: the publication gate above
+      # pins every one of them offline and has already run.
       - name: Documented facts match the live product contract
-        run: node tools/check-facts-live.mjs
+        run: |
+          set +e
+          node tools/check-facts-live.mjs
+          status=$?
+          set -e
+          if [ "$status" -eq 0 ]; then exit 0; fi
+          if [ "$status" -eq 75 ]; then
+            echo "::warning title=Live product contract unreachable::Published without re-checking the live contract. facts/facts.json is still pinned offline by the publication gate, which ran and passed. Re-run this workflow when the endpoint is reachable to restore the live comparison."
+            exit 0
+          fi
+          exit "$status"
       - name: Build the House Manual
         run: node site/build.mjs
         env:
diff --git a/.github/workflows/docs-ci.yml b/.github/workflows/docs-ci.yml
index b1f516e..46eb7fe 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/docs-ci.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/docs-ci.yml
@@ -45,5 +45,22 @@ jobs:
       - uses: actions/setup-node@820762786026740c76f36085b0efc47a31fe5020 # v7.0.0
         with:
           node-version: 24.19.0
+      # Two outcomes, two meanings. A mismatch is documentation drift and must
+      # never publish. Unreachable means a runner could not open a socket to
+      # the product, which says nothing about the facts and used to block the
+      # publication of correct documentation while the site served an older
+      # build. The facts stay guarded either way: the verify job in this same
+      # workflow runs the publication gate, which pins every one of them
+      # offline without touching the network.
       - name: Documented facts match the live product contract
-        run: node tools/check-facts-live.mjs
+        run: |
+          set +e
+          node tools/check-facts-live.mjs
+          status=$?
+          set -e
+          if [ "$status" -eq 0 ]; then exit 0; fi
+          if [ "$status" -eq 75 ]; then
+            echo "::warning title=Live product contract unreachable::Published without re-checking the live contract. facts/facts.json is still pinned offline by the publication gate, which ran and passed. Re-run this workflow when the endpoint is reachable to restore the live comparison."
+            exit 0
+          fi
+          exit "$status"
diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index fe3f903..859a61f 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -20,6 +20,8 @@ Notable changes to the Forked Felines public documentation. Product changes are
 
 ### Publication gate
 
+- An unreachable product endpoint no longer blocks publication. The live-contract check now exits 75 for "could not reach the product" and 1 for "the facts disagree", and only the second stops a publish. A 404 counts as the second: if the contract moves, the endpoint answers, and that is the event this check exists to catch. It stays counted even if the path drops afterwards, so a real 404 cannot be masked by later noise. The two shared an exit code, so a runner that could not open a socket blocked the publication of correct documentation while the site kept serving an older build, which is the worse of the two outcomes. The facts stay guarded either way: they are pinned offline and that check runs first.
+
 - No word may be published twice in a row. Markdown wraps prose across source lines, so a word typed twice reads as two clean lines in a diff and as a defect on the page.
 - One verification date. The README, the reference page, and `facts/facts.json` must agree on when the facts were last checked against the live product contract.
 
diff --git a/tools/check-docs.mjs b/tools/check-docs.mjs
index 893a3e3..c4b5a9b 100644
--- a/tools/check-docs.mjs
+++ b/tools/check-docs.mjs
@@ -53,6 +53,50 @@ for (const [key, value] of Object.entries(pinned)) {
   if (facts[key] !== value) errors.push(`facts/facts.json: ${key} is ${JSON.stringify(facts[key])}, expected ${JSON.stringify(value)}`);
 }
 
+/* 2b. The live-contract check must keep distinguishing its two failures.
+   A mismatch is documentation drift and must never publish. Unreachable is a
+   runner that could not open a socket, which says nothing about the facts, and
+   collapsing the two back into one exit code silently restores the behaviour
+   where a network fault blocks correct documentation while the site serves an
+   older build. Both happened on 2026-08-29, 66 minutes apart, on two different
+   hosted runners, one of which reached the endpoint in the same minute another
+   could not. */
+{
+  const live = readFileSync(join(root, "tools", "check-facts-live.mjs"), "utf8");
+  if (!live.includes("EX_TEMPFAIL = 75")) {
+    errors.push("tools/check-facts-live.mjs: unreachable must exit 75, distinct from a mismatch");
+  }
+  if (!/process\.exit\(EX_TEMPFAIL\)/.test(live)) {
+    errors.push("tools/check-facts-live.mjs: the unreachable path must exit EX_TEMPFAIL, not 1");
+  }
+  /* Asserting that EX_TEMPFAIL exists is not enough: what matters is which
+     conditions reach it. A 404 means the contract moved, which is the event
+     this gate exists to catch, and routing it to the transient exit would
+     publish the House Manual against facts nobody compared. Only a missing
+     response, a 5xx, or a 429 may be transient. */
+  if (!/answeredStatus === null \|\| answeredStatus >= 500 \|\| answeredStatus === 429/.test(live)) {
+    errors.push("tools/check-facts-live.mjs: only no-response, 5xx and 429 may exit 75; a 4xx means the contract moved");
+  }
+  if (!/answeredUnparseable/.test(live)) {
+    errors.push("tools/check-facts-live.mjs: a 2xx with an unparseable body must fail as drift, not as unreachable");
+  }
+  /* A 4xx has to survive the retry loop. A real 404 followed by three dropped
+     connections would otherwise exit 75 and publish, which is the gate's own
+     case being masked by noise. */
+  if (!/contractMissingStatus/.test(live)) {
+    errors.push("tools/check-facts-live.mjs: a 4xx must be sticky across retries, not overwritten by a later dropped connection");
+  }
+  for (const workflow of [".github/workflows/deploy-pages.yml", ".github/workflows/docs-ci.yml"]) {
+    const content = readFileSync(join(root, workflow), "utf8");
+    if (content.includes("run: node tools/check-facts-live.mjs")) {
+      errors.push(`${workflow}: runs the live check bare, so an unreachable endpoint fails the build`);
+    }
+    if (!content.includes('status" -eq 75')) {
+      errors.push(`${workflow}: must treat exit 75 from the live check as a warning that still publishes`);
+    }
+  }
+}
+
 /* 3. Required fact tokens in the pages that state them. */
 const requiredCopy = new Map([
   ["README.md", ["3,333", "8,888", "1,500", "963,238", "community-remediation/v4", "forkedfelines.art"]],
diff --git a/tools/check-facts-live.mjs b/tools/check-facts-live.mjs
index 57f8fc8..8eed0f3 100644
--- a/tools/check-facts-live.mjs
+++ b/tools/check-facts-live.mjs
@@ -2,7 +2,24 @@
  * Compares facts/facts.json with the live public product contract. Run on a
  * schedule and before releases; a mismatch means the product changed and the
  * documentation must be re-verified, page by page, before republishing.
+ *
+ * Two failures live here and they are not the same event:
+ *
+ *   exit 1   the endpoint answered and the facts disagree. Documentation
+ *            drift. Never publish. Re-verify the pages, then update facts.
+ *   exit 75  the endpoint could not be reached at all. Nothing was learned
+ *            about the facts in either direction.
+ *
+ * They used to share exit 1, which meant a runner that could not open a
+ * socket blocked the publication of documentation that was correct, while
+ * the site went on serving an older build. That is strictly worse than
+ * publishing. The facts are not unguarded while the endpoint is
+ * unreachable: check-docs.mjs pins every one of them offline and runs
+ * first in both workflows.
+ *
+ * 75 is EX_TEMPFAIL from sysexits.h, which is what it means here.
  */
+const EX_TEMPFAIL = 75;
 import { readFileSync } from "node:fs";
 import { dirname, join } from "node:path";
 import { fileURLToPath } from "node:url";
@@ -12,24 +29,121 @@ const facts = JSON.parse(readFileSync(join(root, "facts", "facts.json"), "utf8")
 
 /* The product answers from one origin; a runner's route to it can flake.
    Bounded retries separate "the network hiccuped" from "the facts moved",
-   and only the second is a documentation event. */
+   and only the second is a documentation event.
+
+   Three different things used to land in one catch and leave as one exit
+   code, which hid the case this gate exists for. A 404 is not a network
+   fault: if the contract is renamed, moved, or version-bumped out from
+   under the documentation, the endpoint answers, and reporting that as
+   unreachable would publish the House Manual against facts nobody
+   compared. So the decision is made on what the last attempt actually
+   observed:
+
+     no response at all      transient   nothing was learned
+     5xx                     transient   it answered and is having a bad
+                                         time; a deploy window looks like this
+     429                     transient   rate limited, not moved
+     any other 4xx           drift       the contract is not where the
+                                         documentation says it is
+     2xx, unparseable body   drift       it answered and it is not a contract
+
+   The last attempt wins, with one exception. A 4xx that is not 429 is
+   sticky: once the product has told us the contract is not there, later
+   attempts dropping the path cannot unsay it. Without that clause a real
+   404 followed by three refused connections exits 75 and publishes, which
+   is the gate's core case being masked by noise.
+
+   The exception is decided by the asymmetry rather than by likelihood.
+   Wrongly exiting 1 costs a blocked publish: visible, recoverable, one
+   re-run. Wrongly exiting 75 costs a silent publish against a contract
+   nobody compared. Where the two costs are that lopsided, be wrong in the
+   direction someone notices.
+
+   The counter-argument, recorded because it is the thing that would
+   change this: if some intermediary in front of the product answered 404
+   while transiently failing, a healthy deploy would block a publish for
+   no reason. Nothing in this path is known to do that. A container swap
+   surfaces as 502 or 503, and a 404 from this endpoint means the route is
+   genuinely not registered, which is the persistent condition rather than
+   the transient one. Ordering never matters among no-response, 5xx and
+   429, because all three answer 75 regardless. */
 async function fetchLive() {
   let lastError;
+  /* null means the product never answered on the most recent attempt. */
+  let answeredStatus = null;
+  let answeredUnparseable = false;
+  /* Sticky: set by any attempt that saw the contract missing, never cleared. */
+  let contractMissingStatus = null;
+
   for (let attempt = 1; attempt <= 4; attempt += 1) {
+    const pause = async () => {
+      if (attempt < 4) await new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, attempt * 5_000));
+    };
+
+    let response;
     try {
-      const response = await fetch(facts.productFactsEndpoint, {
+      response = await fetch(facts.productFactsEndpoint, {
         headers: { accept: "application/json" },
         signal: AbortSignal.timeout(15_000),
       });
-      if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`answered ${response.status}`);
+    } catch (error) {
+      lastError = error;
+      answeredStatus = null;
+      answeredUnparseable = false;
+      await pause();
+      continue;
+    }
+
+    answeredStatus = response.status;
+    answeredUnparseable = false;
+    if (response.status >= 400 && response.status < 500 && response.status !== 429) {
+      contractMissingStatus ??= response.status;
+    }
+
+    if (!response.ok) {
+      lastError = new Error(`answered ${response.status}`);
+      await pause();
+      continue;
+    }
+
+    try {
       return await response.json();
     } catch (error) {
       lastError = error;
-      if (attempt < 4) await new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, attempt * 5_000));
+      answeredUnparseable = true;
+      await pause();
     }
   }
-  console.error(`live check: ${facts.productFactsEndpoint} unreachable after 4 attempts: ${lastError}`);
-  process.exit(1);
+
+  const transient = answeredStatus === null || answeredStatus >= 500 || answeredStatus === 429;
+  const endpoint = facts.productFactsEndpoint;
+
+  if (contractMissingStatus !== null) {
+    console.error(`live check: ${endpoint} answered ${contractMissingStatus} on at least one of 4 attempts`);
+    console.error("live check: MISMATCH. The contract is not where the documentation says it is. Do not publish: find where it moved and update facts/facts.json.");
+    process.exit(1);
+  }
+
+  if (answeredUnparseable) {
+    console.error(`live check: ${endpoint} answered ${answeredStatus} with a body that is not JSON: ${lastError}`);
+    console.error("live check: MISMATCH. It answered and it is not serving the contract, so the documented facts could not be compared to anything.");
+    process.exit(1);
+  }
+
+  if (!transient) {
+    console.error(`live check: ${endpoint} answered ${answeredStatus} on every one of 4 attempts`);
+    console.error("live check: MISMATCH. The contract is not where the documentation says it is. Do not publish: find where it moved and update facts/facts.json.");
+    process.exit(1);
+  }
+
+  /* Deliberately not a wider retry budget. Widening it trades a visible
+     failure for a slower one and still fails whenever the path is out for
+     longer than whatever number was chosen. */
+  const reason = answeredStatus === null ? `unreachable after 4 attempts: ${lastError}` : `answered ${answeredStatus} after 4 attempts`;
+  console.error(`live check: ${endpoint} ${reason}`);
+  console.error("live check: UNREACHABLE, not a mismatch. The documented facts were not"
+    + " compared, and nothing here suggests they moved.");
+  process.exit(EX_TEMPFAIL);
 }
 const live = await fetchLive();
 
@@ -50,7 +164,7 @@ expect("timing.quoteTtlSeconds", live.timing?.quoteTtlSeconds, facts.quoteTtlSec
 expect("timing.orderTtlSeconds", live.timing?.orderTtlSeconds, facts.orderTtlSeconds);
 
 if (errors.length) {
-  console.error(`live facts check: ${errors.length} mismatch(es)\n`);
+  console.error(`live facts check: MISMATCH, the live contract disagrees with facts/facts.json in ${errors.length} place(s)\n`);
   for (const error of errors) console.error(`  ${error}`);
   process.exit(1);
 }