diff --git a/plugins/tend-ci-runner/skills/nightly/SKILL.md b/plugins/tend-ci-runner/skills/nightly/SKILL.md
index 0913a3a9..f4143679 100644
--- a/plugins/tend-ci-runner/skills/nightly/SKILL.md
+++ b/plugins/tend-ci-runner/skills/nightly/SKILL.md
@@ -76,15 +76,39 @@ a one-line reason) plus a `_Last refreshed: <YYYY-MM-DD>_` footer. Updates:
 
 Find conflicted PRs from this bot and from upstream dependency bots:
 
+Don't filter `gh pr list --json mergeable` on `== "CONFLICTING"`. `mergeable` is computed lazily: the first query after `main` moves returns `UNKNOWN` and only *enqueues* the computation, so a cold read reports a conflicted PR as clean. There is no blocking read — [the REST docs](https://docs.github.com/en/rest/pulls/pulls#get-a-pull-request) prescribe resubmitting the request until the value settles. Test-merge locally instead: `git merge-tree` answers the same question synchronously, in-process, with no retry loop.
+
 ```bash
 BOT_LOGIN=$(gh api user --jq '.login')
+git fetch --quiet origin main
 for author in "$BOT_LOGIN" app/dependabot app/renovate; do
-  gh pr list --author "$author" --json number,title,mergeable,headRefName,author \
-    --jq '.[] | select(.mergeable == "CONFLICTING")'
+  out="/tmp/prs-${author//\//-}.json"   # `app/dependabot` has a slash; strip it
+  # `--limit 100` is load-bearing: `gh pr list` defaults to 30 and truncates
+  # silently, so PR 31 onward would never be test-merged.
+  gh pr list --author "$author" --limit 100 --json number,title,headRefName,author > "$out"
+  # A failed query leaves `$out` empty, which reads as "no conflicts" — the
+  # same silent-miss shape. `[]` (no open PRs) is 3 bytes, a failure is 0.
+  [ -s "$out" ] || { echo "query for $author never landed — conflicts unverified"; continue; }
+  # One fetch for every head, forced because bot branches get force-pushed.
+  # `refs/pull/N/head` also covers PRs opened from a fork.
+  mapfile -t refs < <(jq -r '.[].number | "refs/pull/\(.)/head:refs/tend/pr/\(.)"' "$out")
+  [ "${#refs[@]}" -eq 0 ] || git fetch --quiet --force origin "${refs[@]}"
+  jq -r '.[] | "\(.number)\t\(.title)"' "$out" | while IFS=$'\t' read -r n title; do
+    # Clean merge: exit 0. Conflict: non-zero with the tree OID and conflicted
+    # paths on stdout. Anything else (ref never fetched, bad revision): non-zero
+    # with stdout empty — so test `$tree`, not the exit status alone.
+    if tree=$(git merge-tree --write-tree origin/main "refs/tend/pr/$n" 2>/dev/null); then
+      continue
+    elif [ -n "$tree" ]; then
+      echo "CONFLICTING: $author #$n $title"
+    else
+      echo "merge test never ran, conflicts unverified: $author #$n $title"
+    fi
+  done
 done
 ```
 
-Skip the rest of this step if none of the queries return anything.
+Skip the rest of this step only when every query landed and nothing printed. A PR whose merge test never ran is not a clean one — investigate it and report it as unverified rather than counting it clean.
 
 ### Upstream dependency bots: trigger the bot's own rebase