diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci.yml b/.github/workflows/ci.yml
index b12848f2..44ab073f 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ci.yml
@@ -1060,7 +1060,24 @@ jobs:
           FLY_API_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.FLY_API_TOKEN }}
 
   smoke:
-    name: Post-deploy Smoke
+    # The name carries the job's own status, because the run summary cannot (#675). This job
+    # gates NOTHING — it is `needs: [deploy]` and appears in no other job's `needs`, and it
+    # is not among master's required checks — but when it fails, `gh run list` shows the same
+    # red X as a run where a GATING job failed and `Deploy` was skipped. Red is a property of
+    # the RUN; "did we ship" is a property of a JOB inside it.
+    #
+    # That cost a real misreading on 2026-08-12: a session reviewing the day's CI concluded
+    # "every deploy blocked today was blocked by the gate misfiring" and filed a
+    # three-for-three scoreboard. Two of those three were THIS job failing on releases that
+    # had already deployed and were serving; exactly one deploy was blocked.
+    #
+    # The cost is not bookkeeping. "The gate misfires" argues for LOOSENING gates — raise
+    # budgets, add retries, downgrade to advisory — which was right for the cold-start
+    # latency defect (#664) and exactly backwards for the toolchain fetch (#674), where the
+    # build genuinely could not produce assets and the fix was to remove the network
+    # dependency. Conflate the two shapes a few more times and you get a gate that passes
+    # everything.
+    name: Post-deploy Smoke (advisory — release already shipped)
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
     # Runs AFTER the Fly deploy so it validates the freshly-deployed release, not
     # the old one. It does NOT gate anything (deploy already happened) — it is a
@@ -1083,4 +1100,9 @@ jobs:
         env:
           BASE_URL: https://loopctl.com
           LOOPCTL_SMOKE_KEY: ${{ secrets.LOOPCTL_SMOKE_KEY }}
+          # Tells smoke.sh which of its two jobs this is, so a failure can say whether it
+          # BLOCKED the release (pre-deploy) or merely reports on one already serving
+          # (here). The pre-deploy job deliberately does NOT set this — its failures gate,
+          # and telling an operator "nothing was blocked" there would be false.
+          SMOKE_CONTEXT: post-deploy
         run: bash scripts/smoke.sh
diff --git a/docs/runbooks/post-deploy-smoke.md b/docs/runbooks/post-deploy-smoke.md
index 0d418a72..48f1a043 100644
--- a/docs/runbooks/post-deploy-smoke.md
+++ b/docs/runbooks/post-deploy-smoke.md
@@ -235,7 +235,17 @@ There are now TWO smoke jobs running the same `scripts/smoke.sh`:
 | Job | Runs on | Probes | Can be a required check? |
 |---|---|---|---|
 | `Pre-deploy Smoke (current release)` | every PR + every master push | the release already live | **yes** |
-| `Post-deploy Smoke` | master push, after deploy | the release just shipped | **no** |
+| `Post-deploy Smoke (advisory — release already shipped)` | master push, after deploy | the release just shipped | **no** |
+
+The job carries "advisory" in its NAME on purpose (#675). It gates nothing, but a failure
+renders the same red X as a run where a gating job failed and `Deploy` was skipped — and
+`gh run list` shows only the run's colour, never which job inside it went red. That
+ambiguity produced a real misdiagnosis on 2026-08-12: two advisory smoke failures on
+already-serving releases were counted as blocked deploys, supporting a conclusion that "the
+gates are misfiring". Loosening gates is the right response to a genuine false positive and
+the wrong response to a build that truly could not produce assets, so the two shapes must
+stay tellable apart. On failure the script now says so directly, and names rollback rather
+than re-run as the operator's decision.
 
 The post-deploy job cannot be made a required branch-protection check. It only runs on a
 master push, i.e. *after* the merge, so it never reports on a PR's head SHA — adding it to
diff --git a/scripts/smoke.sh b/scripts/smoke.sh
index 44c43c0c..01bb4531 100755
--- a/scripts/smoke.sh
+++ b/scripts/smoke.sh
@@ -515,5 +515,17 @@ if [ "$FAILURES" -eq 0 ]; then
   exit 0
 else
   echo "$NO $FAILURES smoke check(s) failed"
+  # Say which SHAPE of failure this is, because the run summary cannot (#675). The same
+  # script runs in two jobs with opposite consequences: pre-deploy GATES (deploy needs it, so
+  # a red one stopped the release), post-deploy does NOT (the release already shipped and is
+  # serving). Both render as an identical red X, and reading one as the other led to a
+  # documented misdiagnosis — "the deploy was blocked" about a release that was live.
+  if [ "${SMOKE_CONTEXT:-}" = "post-deploy" ]; then
+    echo
+    echo "  NOTE: this check is ADVISORY. The deploy already succeeded and the release at"
+    echo "  ${BASE_URL} is LIVE and serving traffic right now — nothing was blocked."
+    echo "  Your decision is whether to ROLL BACK, not whether to re-run this job."
+    echo "  See docs/runbooks/post-deploy-smoke.md."
+  fi
   exit 1
 fi