diff --git a/scripts/measure-durability-swallow-family.mjs b/scripts/measure-durability-swallow-family.mjs
index a098c0b3a6..a580c5cdeb 100644
--- a/scripts/measure-durability-swallow-family.mjs
+++ b/scripts/measure-durability-swallow-family.mjs
@@ -7,9 +7,28 @@
 //   node scripts/measure-durability-swallow-family.mjs --sites     # every site
 //   node scripts/measure-durability-swallow-family.mjs --json      # machine
 //   node scripts/measure-durability-swallow-family.mjs --file <p>  # one file
-//   node scripts/measure-durability-swallow-family.mjs --self-test # all 4 control families
+//   node scripts/measure-durability-swallow-family.mjs --self-test # every control family
 //   node scripts/measure-durability-swallow-family.mjs --self-test=gated
-//                                                      # the 3 families CI runs
+//                                                      # every family but POSITIVE_CONTROLS
+//
+// THE CONTROL FAMILIES, NAMED rather than counted, so that the next one added
+// contradicts a LIST and not an integer -- which is exactly how the two bare integers
+// that stood here before went stale, unread, as further families landed:
+// `POSITIVE_CONTROLS`, `NEGATIVE_CONTROLS`, `REGRESSION_CONTROLS`, `RESOLUTION_CONTROLS`,
+// the `DETERMINED` register cross-check (#13886), the copied gate-vocabulary cross-check
+// (#15459), and `WORKLIST_READING_CONTROLS` (#15503).
+//
+// `--self-test=gated` asserts every one of them EXCEPT `POSITIVE_CONTROLS`, and that
+// asymmetry is the point of the split rather than a convenience: the single expression
+// `gated ? [] : POSITIVE_CONTROLS` is the ONLY thing either mode drops, and it drops
+// those controls because they pin MEMBERS of the #12981 worklist that the repair
+// programme exists to REMOVE -- a control a successful repair destroys cannot hold a
+// CI gate.
+//
+// ⛔ THIS PARAGRAPH IS NOT THE AUTHORITY: `SELF_TEST_MODES` is (with the next block,
+// for what CI runs and why), together with the verdict line each mode prints, which
+// NAMES the families it just asserted. A reader who finds either of them disagreeing
+// with this list should trust them and repair this list.
 //
 // THE CENSUS is NOT a gate: it exits 0 on any membership count, it prints "a
 // MEASUREMENT, not a gate" on every run of it, and the file is deliberately not
@@ -484,8 +503,9 @@ const REGRESSION_CONTROLS = [
 /**
  * RESOLUTION controls: a (call site -> body) pair that must not move.
  *
- * The other three families all read MEMBERSHIP, and membership cannot see this
- * defect. Measured, on the tree the scope-aware index landed against: the flat
+ * The other membership-reading families -- POSITIVE, NEGATIVE, REGRESSION -- all
+ * read MEMBERSHIP, and membership cannot see this defect. Measured, on the tree
+ * the scope-aware index landed against: the flat
  * last-wins index misresolved 27 reached call sites, and the census printed
  * byte-identical output before and after the repair — 56 members, 98 quiet, the
  * same stats. A control that reads the census output is therefore GREEN against
@@ -943,9 +963,9 @@ function staleLines(stale) {
  *
  * ## Why there is a subset at all
  *
- * All four families were green only while somebody remembered to run them by
- * hand: measured on `origin/main`, nothing in `package.json` or `.github/**`
- * named this script. The same resolver was then repaired three times (#13459,
+ * The families that existed then (POSITIVE, NEGATIVE, REGRESSION, RESOLUTION)
+ * were green only while somebody remembered to run them by hand: measured on
+ * `origin/main`, nothing in `package.json` or `.github/**` named this script. The same resolver was then repaired three times (#13459,
  * #13474, PR #13915) with no gate holding any of the previous repairs, and the
  * census's numbers feed #12981's repair worklist, so a wrong denominator
  * propagates into that programme unwatched.
@@ -962,8 +982,10 @@ function staleLines(stale) {
  * repairs THAT file. ⛔ A gate that reddens on success is not a gate, and worse,
  * it teaches the fleet to route around gates.
  *
- * So `gated` is the families the repair programme CANNOT destroy — three at
- * #13919, joined by the `DETERMINED` register at #13886 (last section) — and the
+ * So `gated` is the families the repair programme CANNOT destroy — NEGATIVE,
+ * REGRESSION and RESOLUTION at #13919, joined by the `DETERMINED` register
+ * (#13886, last sections), the copied gate vocabulary (#15459) and the worklist
+ * readings (#15503, whose case is made at `WORKLIST_READING_CONTROLS`) — and the
  * exclusion is PERMANENT rather than pending (#13919 ruling of 2026-09-01,
  * boundary 1): repairs move a member from tier `dark` to tier `channelled` and
  * it stays a member, so neither the negative controls, the regression controls,