diff --git a/.github/workflows/codeql-pr.yml b/.github/workflows/codeql-pr.yml
index 162aacf349..1068003f42 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/codeql-pr.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/codeql-pr.yml
@@ -7,7 +7,15 @@ name: CodeQL PR
 on:
   pull_request:
     types: [opened, synchronize, reopened, ready_for_review, closed]
-    branches: [main, master, develop]
+    # Do not restrict the base ref: the org required-workflow ruleset already
+    # scopes this to each repository's actual default branch via
+    # ref_name: ["~DEFAULT_BRANCH"], whatever it is named. A hardcoded
+    # [main, master, develop] list silently produced zero CodeQL checks for
+    # any repository with a different default branch name (confirmed live:
+    # a repository defaulting to gh-pages received every other required
+    # check but no CodeQL check at all) and would also block coverage for
+    # stacked PRs targeting a non-default feature branch, matching
+    # security-scan.yml's own "do not restrict the base ref" precedent.
 
 concurrency:
   group: >-
diff --git a/docs/doctoring/loop-brief-items-15-18-verification-20260903.md b/docs/doctoring/loop-brief-items-15-18-verification-20260903.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..ebd89839fd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/doctoring/loop-brief-items-15-18-verification-20260903.md
@@ -0,0 +1,205 @@
+# Loop-brief items 4, 15-18, 38, 39: verified already resolved, no further change needed
+
+## Context
+
+The 2026-09-03 standing-loop brief asked to confirm whether several specific
+workflow-consolidation and telemetry items were complete, since the queue felt
+like it was growing rather than shrinking. This records what was checked and
+why each item needed no further code change as of this branch's base commit
+(`4f95abc`).
+
+## Items 4 / 39 — opaque 900-second Noema "Repair" timeout, no telemetry on why
+
+Reproduced from the linked evidence:
+`ContextualWisdomLab/html4tree` run `33560972491`, job `100033086428`
+("Required Noema Review ...#595"), step 13 "Prepare Noema model verdict"
+failed with `NoemaRepairDeadlineExceeded: Noema repair exceeded 900-second
+absolute wall-clock deadline` on 2026-09-02T02:28 UTC — no further specifics,
+matching the complaint exactly. The item-39 example
+(`contextual-orchestrator` run `33580381913`, ContextualWisdomLab/contextual-orchestrator#1008) is the same class of
+failure, same day.
+
+Already fixed on this branch's base, same day: PR (`a28fc2f`,
+"fix(noema): remove caller repair deadline and duplicate model call") found
+the 900-second bound had "no owner-specified or measured basis" and, deeper,
+that Noema was duplicating a repair/failover responsibility
+`contextual-orchestrator` already owns — turning one gateway failure into two
+expensive calls. The fix: Noema now sends exactly one structured-output
+request to the gateway, with no caller-side deadline, retry, or temperature;
+every gateway call now emits a passive Actions annotation carrying attempt
+count, elapsed duration, active phase, and a sanitized serving-model
+identifier (see `docs/doctoring/noema-repair-attempt-telemetry.md`, PR
+`86ef3e7` for the doc's own later clarification pass). A permanent contract
+test (`tests/test_noema_repair_has_no_fixed_wall_clock_deadline.py`) forbids
+`NOEMA_REPAIR_DEADLINE_SECONDS`, `NoemaRepairDeadlineExceeded`,
+`signal.setitimer`, and a caller-authored retry/temperature from ever
+reappearing; ran it plus `tests/test_noema_repair_attempt_telemetry.py`
+locally (25 passed) to confirm it holds on this branch.
+
+The item-39 PR (ContextualWisdomLab/contextual-orchestrator#1008, head `f35ee58d`) is still
+`mergeable_state: blocked`, but its Noema check now shows a fresh attempt
+queued at `2026-09-02T19:32:21Z` — after the fix merged — sitting `queued`
+with no conclusion yet. That is the already-documented org-wide Actions
+job-queue ceiling (#1754), not a recurrence of the repair-deadline bug; no
+separate action taken here.
+
+## Item 38 — auto-PR CodeQL into every new repository
+
+Checked whether new repositories actually get CodeQL coverage, and how. Two
+mechanisms exist, deliberately not overlapping:
+
+- GitHub's native org-level "code scanning default setup" (org code-security
+  configuration id `17`, "GitHub recommended") is attached to exactly 3
+  repositories: `noema`, `feelanet-adfs`, `pg-llm-batch`
+  (`gh api orgs/ContextualWisdomLab/code-security/configurations/17/repositories`).
+  `noema` needs this because it is one of the ruleset's own exclusions below.
+- The org required-workflow ruleset (`18156473`) requires `codeql-pr.yml`
+  (among others) on `repository_name: {include: ["~ALL"], exclude: ["noema",
+  ".github", "IRT-bibliography-set"]}` — `~ALL` is a *dynamic* match, so a
+  brand-new repository is covered from its very first pull request with zero
+  manual or automated action, the moment that PR exists. `.github` runs
+  `codeql-pr.yml` directly on its own `pull_request` trigger instead of via
+  the ruleset (excluding a ruleset's own source repo from being its own
+  target avoids a self-referential double-trigger). `IRT-bibliography-set`
+  has neither mechanism, consistent with its name suggesting a non-code data
+  repository CodeQL would not apply to anyway.
+
+The `~ALL` dynamic-target mechanism is a better answer than a bot-authored
+PR *when it actually fires* — but it didn't always. Devin's review on this
+PR correctly caught that `codeql-pr.yml`'s own `on: pull_request: branches:
+[main, master, develop]` filter is a second, narrower gate underneath the
+ruleset's dynamic target, and it silently produced **zero** CodeQL checks for
+a repository whose default branch has a different name. Verified live before
+the review comment arrived at concluding text: `j-planner` (default branch
+`gh-pages`, real open PR #2 as of this writing) received every other
+required check — `opencode-review`, `noema-review`, `strix`, the
+`security-scan.yml`-bundled `osv-scan`/`trivy-fs`/`scorecard`/`Semgrep
+OSS`/`dependency-review` (that workflow deliberately has no branch
+restriction, "Do not restrict the base ref" per its own comment) — but not
+one `Detect CodeQL languages` or `Analyze (...)` check of any kind. Three
+additional org repositories (`argos`, `OmniRoute`, `graphify` — all forks,
+default branches `developmental`, `release/v3.8.50`, `v8` respectively) were
+equally exposed.
+
+**Fixed**, not just documented: removed the `branches: [main, master,
+develop]` restriction from `codeql-pr.yml`'s `pull_request` trigger, matching
+`security-scan.yml`'s own established "do not restrict the base ref"
+precedent — the ruleset's `ref_name: ["~DEFAULT_BRANCH"]` condition is
+already the authoritative gate for which branch qualifies, so the workflow's
+own hardcoded list was pure redundant risk, not a second layer of intended
+protection. Updated the one contract-test assertion that pinned the old
+line (`tests/test_codeql_pr_workflow_contract.py:19`); the workflow's other
+17 assertions, the CodeQL-action-version-pin test, and the SARIF-gate
+behavioral test all still pass, `actionlint` reports no errors, and the file
+still parses as valid YAML.
+
+**Not fixed here** (Devin's second, independent catch, correct but out of
+this PR's scope): the language-detection matrix in the same workflow only
+recognizes GitHub Actions, JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, and Java/Kotlin —
+CodeQL also supports C/C++, C#, Go, Ruby, and Swift, none of which this
+matrix detects; a repository containing only one of those falls back to
+scanning `actions` alone rather than its real source. That is a larger,
+separately-scoped change (new per-language file-detection heuristics plus
+matching contract-test coverage) rather than a one-line fix, and is tracked
+as a follow-up rather than rushed into this PR.
+
+## Item 15 — remove `org-queue-sweep` if plain GitHub Actions syntax can do it
+
+`org-queue-sweep` (`.github/workflows/pr-review-merge-scheduler.yml:591`) walks
+every organization repository looking for PRs that became mergeable after
+their last triggering event fired (event-driven scheduler runs do not retry on
+their own). GitHub Actions has no native primitive for "enumerate every org
+repository's PR queue and act on each" — this requires the GitHub API calls
+the job already makes; it is not something a `schedule:`/`concurrency:` block
+alone could replace.
+
+What plain Actions syntax *can* control, it already does: the schedule trigger
+is deduplicated by workflow's own top-level `concurrency:` group
+(`schedule-${{ github.event.schedule }}`), and the job carries a `timeout-minutes: 60`
+ceiling plus several already-hard-won budget knobs
+(`ORG_SWEEP_MAX_PRS`, `ORG_SWEEP_REVIEW_DISPATCH_LIMIT`,
+`ORG_SWEEP_MAX_UNAVAILABLE`, rotation logic) whose comments cite the specific
+production incidents that shaped them (#1219, #1223).
+
+"Rate limit" covers at least two distinct resources here, and this item's
+"rate limit issues" symptom should not be collapsed into one cause:
+
+- The org's Actions **plan-level 60-concurrent-*job*** ceiling (#1754,
+  docs-only, merged) — a billing-tier constraint on how many jobs (of any
+  kind, any repo) can run at once. This is the one that best matches the
+  general "queue piles up instead of shrinking" symptom this loop-brief
+  opened with, and no workflow-file change can fix it.
+- A separate, already-documented **LLM-provider rate limit** — a
+  `litellm.RateLimitError` storm against the shared NVIDIA NIM key from too
+  many *concurrent Strix/review callers* (`.github` PR #1297, 2026-08-23/24;
+  see `.github` PR #1661 /
+  `docs/doctoring/strix-cross-pr-concurrency-starvation-20260902.md`, not yet
+  merged to `main`). That is why `strix.yml`'s scan job deliberately
+  serializes per repository instead of per PR — a different mechanism, a
+  different resource, and not something `org-queue-sweep` itself triggers
+  directly (it can *dispatch* reviews, but it does not call an LLM provider
+  on its own).
+
+`org-queue-sweep`'s own GitHub REST calls are subject to a third resource
+(GitHub's per-token API rate limit), which is why it already paginates
+conservatively and fails closed past `ORG_SWEEP_MAX_UNAVAILABLE` rather than
+retrying harder. Two of the three resources already have a workflow-level
+mitigation in place today (`strix.yml`'s per-repository serialization for the
+LLM-provider limit; `org-queue-sweep`'s own pagination/budget ceilings for
+its GitHub API calls) — this item is asking whether a *further* edit is
+needed, not claiming no edit exists. Only the plan-level 60-job ceiling is
+structurally outside any workflow file's reach, since it caps total
+concurrent jobs org-wide regardless of how any single workflow is written.
+No action taken; removing or rewriting `org-queue-sweep` would re-litigate an
+already-evidenced design without touching any of the three resources.
+
+## Item 16 — consolidate the per-repo hourly-review-repair caller shown in the linked run
+
+The linked run (`ContextualWisdomLab/.github` run `33524178483`, job
+`99910668839`, workflow `governance-risk-compliance-hourly-review-repair.yml`)
+failed at "Validate scheduler target and dispatch authority" because
+`governance-risk-compliance` was hardcoded into the scheduler in a way the
+validator rejected. Both problems are already fixed on this branch's base:
+
+- The per-repo caller file itself no longer exists — consolidated into the
+  shared `hourly-review-repair.yml` matrix by PR #1673
+  (`29b931e`, "refactor(actions): consolidate hourly review-repair callers").
+- The hardcode that made that specific run fail was replaced with an
+  org-variable admission path by PR #1743 (`8c08583`, already at the tip of
+  `main` this branch is based on; doctoring: this commit's own message and
+  `4f95abc`).
+
+No action taken; the cited failure predates both fixes.
+
+## Item 17 — maximize GitHub Actions file consolidation org-wide
+
+Already swept: `docs/doctoring/ci-workflow-duplication-audit-20260902.md`
+(PR #1731, `9330d41`) re-checked all 63 non-archived/non-fork org repositories
+(255 workflow files) for duplication beyond the hourly-review-repair,
+R-CMD-check, and dependency-review consolidations already completed. Verdict:
+18 of 19 filename-collision groups are genuinely different policies (different
+language/toolchain, security posture, thresholds, trust model, or job
+topology — evidenced per group), and the one true near-duplicate
+(`hourly-pr-maintenance.yml` in DiagramWeave/ThreadWeave) is already two
+~20-30 line thin callers of a shared reusable workflow, differing only by a
+deliberate cron stagger — wrapping that further would be an unrequested
+abstraction over two already-small files. No action taken; re-running this
+audit from scratch would duplicate #1731 rather than extend it.
+
+## Item 18 — GitHub App installation token format change (`ghs_...`, ~520 chars, stateless)
+
+Searched every `.py` and `.sh` file under `scripts/ci/` and `.github/`
+(workflows, and the one composite action at
+`.github/actions/orchestrator-free-sidecar/action.yml`), then re-checked the
+whole repository tree (this repo has no `.yaml`-suffixed files, and
+`opencode.jsonc` and the pinned `requirements-*.txt` files carry nothing
+token-shaped either), for any assumption about installation-token length or
+prefix shape: no fixed-length checks (`len(token) == N`, `token[:N]`), no
+prefix/length regexes matching the old `ghs_` format, and no truncating
+display logic keyed to a specific length. The only token-shaped regexes
+present (`noema_review_gate.py:240,245`, `pr_review_merge_scheduler.py:254`)
+are secret-redaction patterns (`token\s+<anything-non-whitespace>` -> `***`)
+that mask a token of any length or format when logging — they do not depend
+on the token being any particular size. No action taken; this repository has
+nothing that would break under the announced longer, stateless
+installation-token format.
diff --git a/tests/test_codeql_pr_workflow_contract.py b/tests/test_codeql_pr_workflow_contract.py
index 813385b232..ba4ff1ef5c 100644
--- a/tests/test_codeql_pr_workflow_contract.py
+++ b/tests/test_codeql_pr_workflow_contract.py
@@ -16,7 +16,8 @@ def test_codeql_pr_workflow_gates_head_and_merge_sarif_locally() -> None:
     )
 
     assert "name: CodeQL PR" in workflow
-    assert "branches: [main, master, develop]" in workflow
+    assert "branches: [main, master, develop]" not in workflow
+    assert "Do not restrict the base ref" in workflow
     assert workflow.count("upload: false") == 2
     assert "upload: always" not in workflow
     assert workflow.count("Enforce CodeQL Medium+ SARIF gate") == 2