diff --git a/context/code/clients.md b/context/code/clients.md
index a054d12c..816df389 100644
--- a/context/code/clients.md
+++ b/context/code/clients.md
@@ -1189,9 +1189,20 @@ it about", and the browser half has four:
 |---|---|---|
 | `RenderModel` → DOM | every field the render model projects reaches an element | `web/tests/render_surface.test.js` (statically) **and** `harness/tests/contract.spec.js` (on the screen) |
 | JS → wasm | the calls the page makes exist, with the arity the bundle declares, and their answers are painted | `web/tests/bundle/wasm_surface.test.js` (the surface) **and** `contract.spec.js`'s pointer test (the wiring) |
-| page → peer | the handshake goes out first, a frame is answered whole, and a failure is named | `harness/tests/shell.spec.js`, `harness/tests/drill.spec.js` |
+| page → peer | the handshake goes out first, a frame is answered whole, a failure is named, **and the page routes each failure through the call that disarms the watchdog** | `harness/tests/shell.spec.js`, `harness/tests/drill.spec.js` |
 | worker → OPFS | `storage_contract`, run against a real `OpfsFs` | `harness/tests/opfs.spec.js` |
 
+**A unit test of a rule does not test the wiring that reaches it**, and the
+sharpest case in this file is the watchdog. `shell.test.js` proves that
+`createShell.fail()` disarms rather than pre-empts; it cannot prove that
+`app.js`'s socket `close` and `error` listeners call `fail()` rather than
+`setShell()`. That routing is PR #21's other half, the one gotcha 48 says keeps
+getting lost — and PR #61 lost it a third time by keeping the unit test and
+dropping the browser assertion, with 26/26 and 13/13 green. Restored, and the
+rule generalises: **when a unit test replaces a boundary test, ask which of the
+two the regression would have been in.** Here it is the routing, so the guard
+stays in Playwright.
+
 Everything **between** those seams is `node --test web/tests`, and it may assume
 the boundary holds rather than re-establishing it: transport selection from
 `?ws=`, the two facts `#status` composes, the watchdog's arm and disarm, the
@@ -1242,12 +1253,23 @@ Measured on one machine at `1af51c9` versus this branch, both on a private
 | suite | tests | execution | whole job |
 |---|---|---|---|
 | Playwright, before | 29 (+3 skipped) | 36.9s | ~4m30s in CI |
-| Playwright, after | 16 (+3 skipped) | 15.7s | ~4m30s in CI |
-| `node --test web/tests` | 26 | 0.11s | seconds |
+| Playwright, after | 18 (+3 skipped) | ~16s | ~4m30s in CI |
+| `node --test web/tests` | 26 | 0.12s | seconds |
 
-**Cutting Playwright tests barely moves the CI number**, because roughly four
-minutes of that job is three `wasm-pack` builds, `npm ci` and a browser
-download — not test execution. The feedback-time win is the `js` job, which
+**Where that saving actually came from is worth stating, because the obvious
+answer is wrong.** The eleven per-widget tests that were deleted cost **3.3
+seconds between them** — restored verbatim and re-measured — against 3.4s for
+the three contract tests that replace them. They were free. Essentially all of
+36.9s → 15.5s was two `shell.spec.js` tests that **waited out the 8s watchdog in
+real time**, and one of those two was the routing guard this section now
+explains should never have gone. So the deletion of the eleven bought shape, not
+speed; the speed came from a deletion that cost coverage. Both are now back, at
+~75ms each, because `page.clock` fakes the page's timers — which is the honest
+version of the trade: *the wait was the cost, not the test.*
+
+**Cutting Playwright tests barely moves the CI number** in any case, because
+roughly four minutes of that job is three `wasm-pack` builds, `npm ci` and a
+browser download — not test execution. The feedback-time win is the `js` job, which
 needs **no Rust toolchain and no wasm bundle at all**, and that is a constraint
 rather than an accident: the moment a `web/tests/*.test.js` file needs
 `web/pkg/`, it inherits the four-minute build and the argument for it
diff --git a/context/test-evidence/clients.md b/context/test-evidence/clients.md
index f68ffa00..9aff23c3 100644
--- a/context/test-evidence/clients.md
+++ b/context/test-evidence/clients.md
@@ -538,8 +538,9 @@ handshake with a frame the client cannot fold — so this exercises the real
 
 improvise-hwpi: without an `error` listener, a connection that never opened left
 `#status` blank, and "the server is not running" read exactly like "still
-connecting". The watchdog half is asserted on the same page load rather than in
-its own test, because it needs the same nine-second wait. It holds for a reason
+connecting". The watchdog half is asserted on the same page load, and since
+PR #61's follow-up it costs no wall clock at all: `page.clock` fakes the PAGE's
+timers, so `runFor(10s)` advances the watchdog without the test sleeping. It holds for a reason
 its own comment does not lead you to expect: `armWatchdog` runs only after
 `transport.ready` resolves, which happens on `open` — so on a socket that never
 opened the watchdog is never armed at all.
@@ -550,7 +551,8 @@ The other arm, which must keep working when the first is fixed: a socket that
 really did open and then dropped IS a disconnect, and saying so is the whole
 reason `close` cannot simply be suppressed.
 
-**It runs past `HANDSHAKE_TIMEOUT_MS` on purpose.** On this arm the watchdog IS
+**It runs past `HANDSHAKE_TIMEOUT_MS` on purpose** — through `page.clock`, not
+through a real wait. On this arm the watchdog IS
 armed — `armWatchdog` runs after `transport.ready` resolves, i.e. on `open` — so
 "disconnected" is written while a timer is pending, and the only reason it
 survives is that `close` goes through `setShellFailure`, which clears it. That
@@ -566,6 +568,35 @@ assertion rather than another paragraph — proved discriminating by making
 `setShellFailure` skip its `clearTimeout`, which makes it fail. Same rule as
 `doctrine(an_injected_fault_must_be_the_fault_you_named)`, one level up.
 
+**And it was lost a third time, by the PR that was arguing about exactly this.**
+PR #61 split the browser tests into boundary contracts (Playwright) and unit
+tests (`node --test`), and merged these two tests into one that kept only the
+last-value assertions. `shell.test.js`'s "a loud failure DISARMS the watchdog"
+covers `createShell` in isolation and **cannot see whether `app.js` routes the
+close event through `fail()` rather than `setShell()`** — which is the half
+PR #21 fixed and the half that keeps getting lost. Reverting both socket arms
+to `setShell` left the node suite 26/26 and Playwright 13/13 green. Restored
+under their original names, and re-proved with that exact revert: the two-arm
+revert and the close-arm-only revert each fail "…and stays that way", and
+dropping the `opened` flag fails "…the watchdog stays out of it". **Three
+injections, three different tests, none of them the unit test.**
+
+**And the helper guards its own premise.** `page.clock.runFor` on a page where
+`clock.install()` was never called does **nothing and throws nothing**, so a test
+that forgot the install would assert "the watchdog never spoke" against a
+watchdog never given the chance — vacuous, and green. `outlastTheWatchdog` reads
+`Date.now()` inside the page either side of the jump and requires it to have
+moved. Demonstrated both ways: with the install removed the suite passed 6/6,
+and with the guard in place the same omission fails by name.
+
+**The faked clock is what makes the restoration cheap without weakening it**,
+and the injections are the proof of that too: if `page.clock.runFor` did not
+really advance the page's timers, a broken routing could not surface the
+watchdog's message and those injections would have passed. They failed. The
+test keeps the real page, the real socket, the real listeners and the real
+`setTimeout` call — only the *passage of time* is simulated, and 9 seconds of
+wall clock became 75 milliseconds.
+
 **The measurement that could not become a CI guard.** Both of the above were once
 asserted as `test.fail` expected-failures and **had to be removed**: neither
 reproduced on the GitHub runner, where `close` does not follow `error` within the
@@ -1164,6 +1195,11 @@ Every test below was proved able to fail by patching the code it names,
 checking the patch was on disk, running the suite and reading the failure —
 never by the absence of an error. Thirteen injections, thirteen failures:
 
+**What `shell.test.js` cannot reach, and the PR found out the hard way:** it
+tests `createShell` in isolation, so it sees the watchdog RULE and never the
+`app.js` wiring that calls it. That distinction is now written into
+`context/code/clients.md` and guarded in `shell.spec.js`.
+
 **`shell.test.js`** — `socketUrl` stops upgrading `ws://` on an https page;
 `composeStatus` returns the model fact alone (which fails five tests, because
 the watchdog's messages are shell facts and vanish with it); `fail()` stops
diff --git a/harness/tests/shell.spec.js b/harness/tests/shell.spec.js
index a0f60fdf..4f27c2f7 100644
--- a/harness/tests/shell.spec.js
+++ b/harness/tests/shell.spec.js
@@ -11,10 +11,38 @@ const status = (page) => page.locator("#status");
 /// the harness's OWN server, so it follows the port the config chose.
 const NO_WEBSOCKET_HERE = `127.0.0.1:${process.env.IMPROVISE_HARNESS_PORT ?? "8099"}`;
 
-/// `web/app.js`'s own HANDSHAKE_TIMEOUT_MS. One test has to outlast it, and a
-/// number that silently disagreed with the page would pass for the wrong reason.
+/// `web/app.js`'s own HANDSHAKE_TIMEOUT_MS. Three tests have to outlast it, and
+/// a number that silently disagreed with the page would pass for the wrong reason.
 const HANDSHAKE_TIMEOUT_MS = 8_000;
 
+/// Record every distinct #status the page shows, not just the last one: the
+/// properties below are about a message being REPLACED, which a final read
+/// cannot see. Installed before the page's own script runs.
+function logStatus() {
+  window.__statusLog = [];
+  new MutationObserver(() => {
+    const text = document.getElementById("status")?.textContent ?? "";
+    if (text && window.__statusLog.at(-1) !== text) window.__statusLog.push(text);
+  }).observe(document, { childList: true, subtree: true, characterData: true });
+}
+
+const json = (v) => JSON.stringify(v);
+
+/// Walk past the watchdog without waiting for it. `page.clock` fakes the
+/// page's own timers, so the 8s is the PAGE's and the wall clock is not.
+async function outlastTheWatchdog(page) {
+  const jump = HANDSHAKE_TIMEOUT_MS + 2_000;
+  const before = await page.evaluate(() => Date.now());
+  await page.clock.runFor(jump);
+  // `runFor` without `clock.install()` does NOTHING and throws nothing, so a
+  // test that forgot it would assert "the watchdog never spoke" vacuously.
+  const after = await page.evaluate(() => Date.now());
+  expect(
+    after - before,
+    "page.clock.install() was not called: the page's timers never advanced",
+  ).toBeGreaterThanOrEqual(jump);
+}
+
 test.describe("the shell reports what its peer is doing", () => {
   // improvise-hwpi. The fault is injected at the *peer*, not in the page, so
   // this exercises the real `on_frame` and the real catch.
@@ -26,15 +54,30 @@ test.describe("the shell reports what its peer is doing", () => {
     await expect(status(page)).toContainText("bad frame", { timeout: 15_000 });
   });
 
-  // A socket that never opened did not "disconnect" (improvise-taxx): nothing
-  // on the close event can discriminate, so the page records `opened` itself.
-  // That it then STAYS is the watchdog's disarming, which is Node's now.
-  test("a peer that cannot be reached is named, and one that dropped is not confused with it", async ({
+  // improvise-hwpi, plus the half `shell.test.js` cannot reach: that app.js
+  // ROUTES this arm through `shell.fail`, which disarms the watchdog.
+  test("a peer that cannot be reached is named, and the watchdog stays out of it", async ({
     page,
   }) => {
+    await page.clock.install();
+    await page.addInitScript(logStatus);
     await page.goto(`/app/index.html?ws=${NO_WEBSOCKET_HERE}`);
     await expect(status(page)).toContainText("cannot reach", { timeout: 15_000 });
+    await outlastTheWatchdog(page);
 
+    const log = await page.evaluate(() => window.__statusLog);
+    expect(log.some((t) => t.includes("sent no document")), `#status said: ${json(log)}`).toBe(
+      false,
+    );
+  });
+
+  // The arm PR #21 fixed and that gotcha 48 says keeps getting lost: a socket
+  // that never opened did not "disconnect", and the one that did STAYS so.
+  test("a socket that opened and then dropped reads as disconnected, and stays that way", async ({
+    page,
+  }) => {
+    await page.clock.install();
+    await page.addInitScript(logStatus);
     // Closes on the page's first frame, so "it opened first" is true by
     // construction rather than by timer.
     await page.routeWebSocket("ws://127.0.0.1:8790/", (ws) => {
@@ -43,6 +86,16 @@ test.describe("the shell reports what its peer is doing", () => {
     await page.goto("/app/index.html?ws=127.0.0.1:8790");
     await expect(status(page)).toContainText("connected", { timeout: 15_000 });
     await expect(status(page)).toContainText("disconnected", { timeout: 15_000 });
+
+    // Past the watchdog it was armed against: the routing, not the rule, is
+    // what this can see and `shell.test.js` cannot.
+    await outlastTheWatchdog(page);
+    await expect(status(page)).toContainText("disconnected");
+
+    const log = await page.evaluate(() => window.__statusLog);
+    expect(log.some((t) => t.includes("sent no document")), `#status said: ${json(log)}`).toBe(
+      false,
+    );
   });
 
   // The one assertion that needs the real timer: that the watchdog is ARMED
diff --git a/web/tests/render_surface.test.js b/web/tests/render_surface.test.js
index 1fe8e1b2..aa0766aa 100644
--- a/web/tests/render_surface.test.js
+++ b/web/tests/render_surface.test.js
@@ -8,6 +8,13 @@ import { fileURLToPath } from "node:url";
 
 const read = (rel) => readFileSync(fileURLToPath(new URL(rel, import.meta.url)), "utf8");
 
+/// Comments name model fields routinely, so a field mentioned only in one
+/// would read as painted. Strip them before asking what the code touches.
+const code = (rel) =>
+  read(rel)
+    .replace(/\/\*[\s\S]*?\*\//g, " ")
+    .replace(/(^|[^:"'`])\/\/.*$/gm, "$1");
+
 /// Fields the page deliberately does not read, each with the reason. A field
 /// belongs here only with an argument; the list is the debt, written down.
 // improvise-z754 put the title bar's facts in one shared cache and taught
@@ -32,7 +39,7 @@ function renderModelFields() {
 
 test("every field the render model projects is painted, or named as debt", () => {
   // Both halves of the page: `app.js` paints, `shell.js` plans the grid.
-  const page = read("../app.js") + read("../shell.js");
+  const page = code("../app.js") + code("../shell.js");
   const unpainted = renderModelFields().filter((field) => !page.includes(`model.${field}`));
   assert.deepEqual(
     unpainted.sort(),