diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 701d2b9896..5626956b61 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -23,6 +23,22 @@ this file. The format follows Keep a Changelog, and versioned releases follow
 Semantic Versioning where the repository publishes a release.
 
 ## [Unreleased]
+- **Fix a stale `test_strix_quick_gate.sh` assertion left broken by the `#1630`
+  scheduler-cadence lengthening.** `pr-review-merge-scheduler.yml`'s repository-local
+  heartbeat was changed from a quarter-hourly `cron: "*/30 * * * *"` to an hourly
+  `cron: "30 * * * *"` (see `docs/doctoring/actions-queue-saturation-hourly-sweep.md`),
+  and the Python regression `tests/test_actions_queue_saturation_scheduler_cadence.py`
+  was updated to match at the time — but the parallel bash contract in
+  `scripts/ci/test_strix_quick_gate.sh` still asserted the literal old string, so
+  every PR whose required `exact-head-path-policy` check ran this script against a
+  current `main` checkout failed on an assertion the workflow file itself could no
+  longer satisfy, regardless of the PR's own diff. Updated the assertion to the
+  current cron string and corrected an adjacent stale "15-minute organization sweep
+  / 30-minute scheduled scan" description to the current hourly/hourly cadence.
+  Verified: `bash scripts/ci/test_strix_quick_gate.sh` now passes against unmodified
+  `main` (confirmed failing before this fix, on the same clean clone); full suite
+  unaffected (2600+ passed, 100% coverage, 100% docstrings) since this is a
+  bash-only assertion string with no Python-side counterpart to update.
 - **Consolidate the two genuinely duplicate quality-CI callers behind one reusable
   `workflow_call` gate; leave the other six alone.** An audit of the 8
   `.github/workflows/*-quality-ci.yml` bootstrap-templated files found only one pair —
diff --git a/docs/product-technical-gap-baseline.md b/docs/product-technical-gap-baseline.md
index ab0d473b64..5eb704cc74 100644
--- a/docs/product-technical-gap-baseline.md
+++ b/docs/product-technical-gap-baseline.md
@@ -2628,6 +2628,71 @@ Higgins, S. S., Crepalde, N., & Fernandes, L. (2021). Segmented multiplexity: A
 
 **Evidence / acceptance.** Permanent tests forbid retry/deadline/sampling symbols in the caller and prove one gateway request, one attempt annotation, control-character-safe telemetry, missing-value rejection, valid trailing-comma normalization, and exact changed-line guidance. Fresh exact-head repository checks and reviews remain the admission authority; predecessor-head evidence is not transferable. The remaining runtime work is to preserve distinct `request_too_large`, discovery, rate-limit, provider transport, malformed-output, stale-head, and sandbox-command-timeout categories in hosted logs.
 
+## 2026-09-02 `test_strix_quick_gate.sh` stale cron assertion left broken by the `#1630` cadence lengthening
+
+**Problem.** The required `exact-head-path-policy` check (which runs `bash
+scripts/ci/test_strix_quick_gate.sh` against the exact PR head) was failing on
+multiple, unrelated open PRs (observed directly on `.github#1476`, a PR whose own
+diff never touches this script or the scheduler workflow) with:
+
+```
+FAIL: scheduler wakes frequently enough to clear auto-merge PRs that become stale
+after their initial PR events (missing 'cron: "*/30 * * * *"')
+```
+
+**Root cause.** `#1630` (referenced in `docs/doctoring/actions-queue-saturation-hourly-sweep.md`)
+deliberately lengthened `pr-review-merge-scheduler.yml`'s repository-local heartbeat
+from a quarter-hourly `cron: "*/30 * * * *"` to an hourly `cron: "30 * * * *"` to
+reduce Actions-capacity pressure during the sustained organization-wide queue
+saturation this session repeatedly documented. The Python regression
+`tests/test_actions_queue_saturation_scheduler_cadence.py` was correctly updated at
+the time (it now asserts `'- cron: "30 * * * *"' in workflow` and explicitly
+`'*/30 * * * *' not in workflow`) — but the parallel bash contract test,
+`scripts/ci/test_strix_quick_gate.sh`, was not, and kept asserting the literal old
+string. This is a genuine, reproducible defect on protected `main` itself, not a
+symptom of any one PR being stale: I confirmed it by running the script directly
+against an unmodified, freshly cloned `main` (commit `8c085835`) before making any
+change, and it failed with the identical message.
+
+**Why this matters at organization scale.** `exact-head-path-policy` is a required
+check for every PR touching Strix-quick-gate-covered paths, checked out against
+each PR's own exact head but running this trusted base-branch script. Since the
+assertion can never pass against the current, correctly-updated workflow file, this
+was a standing, silent block on an unbounded number of unrelated PRs across the
+whole `.github` PR queue until fixed at the root -- exactly the class of "root
+cause outside any one PR's diff" issue this session's operating directive requires
+be fixed at the canonical location rather than worked around per-PR.
+
+**Fix.** Updated the one stale assertion (`scripts/ci/test_strix_quick_gate.sh`)
+from `'cron: "*/30 * * * *"'` to `'cron: "30 * * * *"'`, matching the workflow's
+actual current value and the already-correct Python-side assertion. Also corrected
+an adjacent stale human-readable description ("scheduler isolates the 15-minute
+organization sweep from the separate 30-minute scheduled scan") to the current
+hourly/hourly cadence -- both `org-queue-sweep` and this repository-local scan are
+now hourly, so the old minute figures described a schedule that no longer exists.
+
+**Verification.** `bash scripts/ci/test_strix_quick_gate.sh` — confirmed FAIL on
+unmodified `main` before the change, confirmed PASS after. Full suite:
+`coverage run -m pytest tests -q` — all passed; `coverage report --fail-under=100`
+— 100% on `scripts/ci/`; `interrogate` — 100%. This is a bash-string-only fix with
+no Python production code touched, so the full-suite pass is a non-regression
+check, not evidence the fix itself works — the direct before/after script run is
+that evidence.
+
+**Risk of this fix itself.** Essentially none: a one-line literal-string update in
+a test assertion, verified to both fail before and pass after against the exact
+same unmodified `main` checkout. No workflow, script, or other test file changed.
+
+**Expected effect.** `exact-head-path-policy` stops failing organization-wide PRs
+on this assertion once this fix reaches protected `main`; any PR whose branch has
+already synced past this point (or syncs after) picks it up automatically.
+
+**Follow-up.** None identified — this closes the specific gap. If a future cadence
+change lands again, the durable fix is process, not code: update every test that
+asserts the literal cron string (currently exactly these two files) in the same PR
+that changes the cron value, per this repo's own "contract tests pin workflows AND
+prose" convention already stated in `CLAUDE.md`.
+
 ## Item 4 fresh evidence: gateway 500 after a 649.5s "connecting" phase with `served_model=unknown` — 2026-09-03
 
 **Status:** A live, current instance of item 4's still-open telemetry complaint, distinct from the already-resolved html4tree/900-second caller-repair-deadline case above (that mechanism was removed by PR #1672). Recorded here from a fresh, exact job log. Two distinct defects were found in the one error line below, both root-caused and both with a fix proposed but not yet merged: a caller-owned phase-mislabeling bug (this repository's own `scripts/ci/noema_review_gate.py`, see below) and a gateway-owned attribution gap (`contextual-orchestrator`'s `_invoke` failover loop, relayed to and fixed by the peer session with deep context in that repo, see below).
diff --git a/scripts/ci/test_strix_quick_gate.sh b/scripts/ci/test_strix_quick_gate.sh
index f846fb2597..56a2ad8fb5 100755
--- a/scripts/ci/test_strix_quick_gate.sh
+++ b/scripts/ci/test_strix_quick_gate.sh
@@ -1559,11 +1559,11 @@ assert_pr_review_merge_scheduler_uses_github_actions_bot_token() {
 	assert_file_contains "$workflow_file" 'pull_request_target:' "scheduler can run as an organization required workflow without repository-local copies"
 	assert_file_contains "$workflow_file" 'auto_merge_enabled' "scheduler rechecks already stale PRs as soon as native auto-merge is enabled"
 	assert_file_contains "$workflow_file" 'workflows: ["Required OpenCode Review", "Strix Security Scan"]' "scheduler reruns after review or security evidence completion so approvals can trigger merge/update actions"
-	assert_file_contains "$workflow_file" 'cron: "*/30 * * * *"' "scheduler wakes frequently enough to clear auto-merge PRs that become stale after their initial PR events"
+	assert_file_contains "$workflow_file" 'cron: "30 * * * *"' "scheduler wakes frequently enough to clear auto-merge PRs that become stale after their initial PR events"
 	assert_file_not_contains "$workflow_file" "github.event.pull_request.number == 240" "scheduler must not hard-code repository-specific PR bypasses"
 	assert_file_contains "$workflow_file" "github.event_name == 'pull_request_target' && format('pr-{0}', github.event.pull_request.number)" "scheduler scopes pull_request_target concurrency to the active PR"
 	assert_file_contains "$workflow_file" "github.event_name == 'workflow_run' && github.event.workflow_run.pull_requests[0].number && format('pr-{0}', github.event.workflow_run.pull_requests[0].number)" "scheduler scopes workflow_run concurrency to the completed review PR"
-	assert_file_contains "$workflow_file" "github.event_name == 'schedule' && format('schedule-{0}', github.event.schedule)" "scheduler isolates the 15-minute organization sweep from the separate 30-minute scheduled scan"
+	assert_file_contains "$workflow_file" "github.event_name == 'schedule' && format('schedule-{0}', github.event.schedule)" "scheduler isolates the hourly organization sweep from the separate hourly repository-local scan"
 	assert_file_contains "$workflow_file" "github.event_name == 'repository_dispatch' && github.event.client_payload.target_repository != '' && github.event.client_payload.pr_number != ''" "scheduler scopes targeted manual queue scans to the requested PR"
 	assert_file_contains "$workflow_file" "cancel-in-progress: \${{ github.event_name == 'pull_request_target' || github.event_name == 'pull_request_review' || github.event_name == 'repository_dispatch' || (github.event_name == 'workflow_run' && !github.event.workflow_run.pull_requests[0].number) }}" "scheduler cancels stale PR/review/manual queue scans instead of accumulating merge/update attempts"
 	assert_file_contains "$workflow_file" "timeout-minutes: 60" "organization sweep has enough headroom to finish the complete repository walk"