diff --git a/.claude/scripts/agent-role-delivery-contract.test.sh b/.claude/scripts/agent-role-delivery-contract.test.sh
index 3b459cd0..3d7af35c 100755
--- a/.claude/scripts/agent-role-delivery-contract.test.sh
+++ b/.claude/scripts/agent-role-delivery-contract.test.sh
@@ -50,6 +50,77 @@ grep -Fq '### Authority model' "${constitution}" ||
 grep -Fq 'plugins/agentic-engineering/agents/agent-improver.agent.md' "${constitution}" ||
   fail "consumer does not name the upstream Agent Improver source"
 
+# The bundled SKILL.md is SYNCED from devantler-tech/agent-skills (it carries
+# metadata.github-repo and the update-agent-skills workflow re-pulls it), so an edit there
+# is silently reverted. The consumer listed it as an authoring surface until 2026-07-25,
+# which would route a generic fix into a file that discards it.
+#
+skill_path='plugins/agentic-engineering/skills/agent-improvement/SKILL.md'
+
+# Owner, path, provenance value and the non-authoring rule must all appear in ONE bullet.
+# Asserting any of them against the whole contract is a scope hole — verified: changing the
+# real owner to agent-plugins and appending an unrelated copy of the expected phrase
+# elsewhere satisfied a global check. Extraction therefore starts at the OWNER line (the
+# bullet's first line), not at the path line, so the owner declaration is bound to this skill.
+# Stop at the next SIBLING BULLET as well as at a blank line. Markdown bullets are normally
+# consecutive with no blank line between them, so a blank-line-only terminator swallowed the
+# following bullet too — and the "same bullet" binding this guard claims could then be
+# satisfied by text that had moved into that sibling.
+skill_bullet="$(awk '
+  !inb && /\*\*`devantler-tech\/agent-skills`\*\* authors `agent-improvement\/`/ { inb = 1; print; next }
+  inb {
+    if ($0 ~ /^[[:space:]]*$/) exit
+    if ($0 ~ /^[[:space:]]*[-*+] /) exit
+    print
+  }
+' "${constitution}" | tr '\n' ' ' | tr -s '[:space:]' ' ')"
+[ -n "${skill_bullet}" ] ||
+  fail "consumer does not name agent-skills as the owner of bundled skills"
+assert_bullet() {
+  case "${skill_bullet}" in
+    *"$1"*) ;;
+    *) fail "$2" ;;
+  esac
+}
+assert_bullet "${skill_path}\` carries" \
+  "the agent-skills owner bullet does not name the bundled agent-improvement/SKILL.md"
+assert_bullet 'github-repo: https://github.com/devantler-tech/agent-skills' \
+  "the agent-skills owner bullet does not name devantler-tech/agent-skills as the upstream"
+assert_bullet 'It is a synced artifact, **not** an authoring surface' \
+  "the agent-skills owner bullet does not mark that copy a non-authoring surface"
+
+# Provenance is a per-FILE question: the same plugin directory holds synced skills and
+# locally-authored agents, so a per-directory rule is wrong in one direction or the other.
+#
+# An UNINITIALISED submodule is a normal local state, not contract drift. Detect it first, or
+# a fresh checkout reports "the skill is missing upstream" and hides the actionable fix.
+plugin_root="${repo_root}/libraries/agent-plugins/plugins/agentic-engineering"
+[ -d "${plugin_root}" ] ||
+  fail "libraries/agent-plugins is not initialised, so the bundled skill cannot be checked. Initialise it with
+       .claude/scripts/submodule-init.sh libraries/agent-plugins"
+
+bundled_skill="${plugin_root}/skills/agent-improvement/SKILL.md"
+[ -f "${bundled_skill}" ] ||
+  fail "bundled agent-improvement/SKILL.md is missing at the pinned plugin revision — AGENTS.md routes generic skill edits through this path, so its absence invalidates the contract text"
+
+# Query the frontmatter STRUCTURALLY, at the exact YAML path `metadata.github-repo`.
+#
+# A line-oriented grep cannot express this and kept failing in new ways: it accepted the value
+# under a different mapping (`examples.github-repo`), accepted a body example after the real
+# field was deleted, and treated frontmatter with no closing delimiter as valid. yq resolves
+# the real path or returns null, which is the property actually wanted — and it is SHORTER than
+# the hand-rolled extraction it replaces, so this closes the hole while cutting complexity.
+command -v yq >/dev/null ||
+  fail "yq is required to verify the bundled skill's provenance structurally. Install it (brew install yq; it is preinstalled on GitHub ubuntu runners)"
+# `|| skill_upstream=''` is load-bearing under `set -e`: yq exits non-zero on unparseable
+# frontmatter (e.g. no closing delimiter), which would abort the script SILENTLY — a failing
+# test with no message, indistinguishable from a crash. Capture the failure and let the
+# assertion below report it with the actionable text.
+skill_upstream="$(yq --front-matter=extract '.metadata.github-repo // ""' "${bundled_skill}" 2>/dev/null)" ||
+  skill_upstream=''
+[ "${skill_upstream}" = 'https://github.com/devantler-tech/agent-skills' ] ||
+  fail "bundled agent-improvement/SKILL.md does not declare metadata.github-repo = https://github.com/devantler-tech/agent-skills (got: '${skill_upstream:-<none or unparseable frontmatter>}') — re-check the owning repository before trusting the contract text"
+
 # Every machine-readable entrypoint pointer must resolve to an agent the pinned plugin
 # actually BUNDLES. Derived from the submodule rather than hard-coded, so the next upstream
 # rename cannot leave this consumer pointing at a file that no longer exists — which is
diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
index 9c668012..52cc9b45 100644
--- a/AGENTS.md
+++ b/AGENTS.md
@@ -263,11 +263,55 @@ definition surface, and an installed/cache copy is never an authoring target.
   script, the provider-neutral desired state, plugin settings, and the Cursor loader source. The local
   Agent Improver agent/skill forks are retired, and so is the standalone FinOps agent fork — the
   reviewed plugin is the source for both roles.
-- The generic upstream source in `devantler-tech/agent-plugins`, specifically
-  `plugins/agentic-engineering/agents/agent-improver.agent.md`,
-  `plugins/agentic-engineering/skills/agent-improvement/SKILL.md`, the plugin README/desired state,
-  and their manifest/contract validation. Change generic behaviour there first, merge it, then update
-  this consumer's `libraries/agent-plugins` gitlink and copied desired state.
+- The generic upstream source, which is **NOT one repository**. **Check the file's own provenance
+  before editing it — the question is per-FILE, never per-directory**, because one plugin directory
+  mixes locally-authored files with copies synced from *several different* upstreams:
+  - **`devantler-tech/agent-plugins`** authors
+    `plugins/agentic-engineering/agents/agent-improver.agent.md`, the plugin README/desired state, and
+    their manifest/contract validation. These carry **no** `metadata.github-repo`.
+  - **`devantler-tech/agent-skills`** authors `agent-improvement/`, **and that one skill is the only
+    bundled skill this grant covers** — no other skill in that repository is a named surface.
+    🔴 The copy at `plugins/agentic-engineering/skills/agent-improvement/SKILL.md` carries
+    `metadata.github-repo: https://github.com/devantler-tech/agent-skills` and is re-pulled by the
+    `update-agent-skills` workflow, so editing it there is **silently reverted** — no conflict, no CI
+    failure, no signal. It is a synced artifact, **not** an authoring surface.
+
+  ⚠️ **The following is INFORMATIONAL ROUTING GUIDANCE, not part of the grant.** It exists so a fix is
+  not sent to the wrong repository; it names **no** additional definition surface, and every skill in
+  it is **out of scope** for autonomous change. Other bundled skills come from third-party upstreams
+  entirely — measured 2026-07-25: `find-skills` from `vercel-labs/skills`, `git-commit`/`refactor`
+  from `github/awesome-copilot`, `test-driven-development` from `obra/superpowers`, `astro` from
+  `astrolicious/agent-skills`. Each is a third party, so the *Ask before upstream creates* rule and the
+  *Professional-work repository boundary* both apply before any interaction. **Read the value to learn
+  who owns a file; never read it as permission to change that file.**
+
+  Verify **from the monorepo root**, and **query the frontmatter structurally** — a `grep` for the
+  string is not good enough here. It reports a file whose *body* merely mentions the URL, accepts a
+  prefix-extended rename (`agent-skills-v2`), and misses that the value sits under some other mapping
+  than `metadata`. Ask for the exact YAML path instead:
+
+  ```sh
+  # who owns each bundled skill (empty/null ⇒ authored in agent-plugins, safe to edit there):
+  for f in libraries/agent-plugins/plugins/*/skills/*/SKILL.md; do
+    printf '%s\t%s\n' "$(yq --front-matter=extract '.metadata.github-repo // "LOCAL"' "$f")" "$f"
+  done
+  ```
+
+  Anything printing `https://github.com/devantler-tech/agent-skills` is **synced** — edit it upstream
+  in that repo. `LOCAL` means it is authored in `agent-plugins`.
+
+  Change generic behaviour in the **owning** repository first. The rollout then differs by owner, and
+  **the skills path has an extra hop that is easy to skip**:
+  - *Authored in `agent-plugins`* (agents, README, desired state): merge there, then bump this
+    consumer's `libraries/agent-plugins` gitlink.
+  - *Authored in `agent-skills`* (bundled skills): merge there, **then wait for `update-agent-skills`
+    to re-pull it into `agent-plugins` and for THAT generated PR to merge**, and only then bump the
+    gitlink. Bumping straight after the `agent-skills` merge pins a revision that still carries the
+    **old** skill — the change is real upstream and absent here, which reads as a completed rollout
+    while nothing has actually shipped to this deployment. Confirm by reading the skill's content at
+    the pinned revision, never by the upstream PR being merged.
+
+  Finally, update the copied desired state.
 
 **Runtime-local surfaces — back up before editing, verify in place, and record before/after in native
 memory and the run report:**