diff --git a/.claude/skills/code-review/SKILL.md b/.claude/skills/code-review/SKILL.md
index 46dbceb2..faef7aa8 100644
--- a/.claude/skills/code-review/SKILL.md
+++ b/.claude/skills/code-review/SKILL.md
@@ -107,13 +107,13 @@ python3 scripts/check-comment-runs.py                   # the two-line comment c
 python3 scripts/check-comment-runs.py --check-evidence  # a DIFFERENT question
 ```
 
-**Run both spellings of `check-comment-runs.py`.** It is one script answering
-two questions and the flag *selects* rather than adds, so `--check-evidence`
-never runs the comment cap and says nothing about having skipped it. Three
-separate agents hit this in one campaign: a local gate using only the flagged
-form went green while CI, which runs both, went red on a three-line doc comment
-(improvise-ijql). The flagged form is also the expensive one — it needs a
-compiled workspace — which makes it the one people run alone.
+**`--check-evidence` is additive**, so it answers the comment cap too and both
+verdicts print. It did not always: the flag used to *select*, so the flagged
+run skipped the cap and said nothing about having skipped it, and three
+separate agents hit that in one campaign — a local gate using only the flagged
+form went green while CI went red on a three-line doc comment (improvise-ijql).
+Run the bare form anyway when you only want the cap: it is 0.3s and needs no
+toolchain, where the flagged one needs a compiled workspace.
 
 The knowledge base is checked in CI as code:
 
diff --git a/scripts/check-comment-runs.py b/scripts/check-comment-runs.py
index f0deddbf..07b61e7a 100755
--- a/scripts/check-comment-runs.py
+++ b/scripts/check-comment-runs.py
@@ -999,8 +999,9 @@ def _dispatch_self_test():
             run = _dispatch_case(tmp, _DISPATCH_CAPPED, extra)
             if run.returncode == 0:
                 failures.append(f"  DISPATCH: {name}: exited 0 over a four-line comment run")
-            elif "f.rs" not in run.stderr:
-                failures.append(f"  DISPATCH: {name}: failed without naming the file")
+            elif not ("comment runs longer than" in run.stderr and "f.rs" in run.stderr):
+                failures.append(f"  DISPATCH: {name}: failed, but not about the cap: "
+                                f"{run.stderr.strip()[:200]}")
         with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as tmp:
             run = _dispatch_case(tmp, _DISPATCH_CLEAN, extra)
             if run.returncode != 0: