diff --git a/.github/scripts/labels-reconcile.sh b/.github/scripts/labels-reconcile.sh
index 38de0b9..4a225fd 100644
--- a/.github/scripts/labels-reconcile.sh
+++ b/.github/scripts/labels-reconcile.sh
@@ -10,13 +10,15 @@ set -euo pipefail
 # own mark every tick.
 #
 # The verdict contract (CONTRIBUTING.md): reviews end in approve or
-# request-changes. Reality check (#85 round 1): at least one live bot posts
-# its agreement as a COMMENTED review and can never formally approve, which
-# would park every fully-agreed PR in state:addressing forever. So COMMENTED
-# reviews whose body carries a durable agreement signal count as approval —
-# the workaround the state machine owes the fleet until every bot speaks the
-# formal contract. Any verdict that counts toward needs-human must be bound
-# to the CURRENT head SHA: GitHub keeps approvals alive across pushes, and a
+# request-changes. Some live bots are comment-only and post agreement as a
+# COMMENTED review — a non-verdict this machine refuses to guess about (body
+# parsing is a heuristic, and a wrong guess promotes an unapproved PR). The
+# judgment call belongs to the PR AUTHOR, who reads the round and escalates
+# by requesting the human's review — an explicit request is a fact, and it is
+# the one this machine trusts (see decide_state's top precedence). The
+# machine auto-requests the human only in the no-judgment-needed case: three
+# formal head-current approvals. Any approval that counts must be bound to
+# the CURRENT head SHA: GitHub keeps approvals alive across pushes, and a
 # stale approval must never promote unreviewed code to the human.
 #
 # DRY_RUN=1 narrates every mutation instead of performing it (how this script
@@ -48,22 +50,14 @@ run() { # every mutation goes through here — DRY_RUN=1 logs instead of doing
 
 requested() { grep -qxF "$1" <<<"$REQUESTED"; }
 
-agreement_signal() { # $1 = review body → 0 when it carries a durable agreement
-  # the signals the live bots actually emit: grok "**Verdict: Approve**",
-  # codex "Verdict: I agree with everything", claude "✅ … I agree with
-  # everything". Conservative on purpose: "I agree with most" is NOT a match.
-  grep -qiE 'verdict:? ?\**approve|i agree with everything|^✅' <<<"$1"
-}
-
 bot_verdict() { # $1 = login → MISSING | BLOCK | APPROVE | STALE | FEEDBACK
-  local review state commit body
+  local review state commit
   review="$(jq -c --arg u "$1" \
     '[.[] | select(.user.login == $u)] | sort_by(.submitted_at) | last // empty' \
     <<<"$REVIEWS_JSON")"
   if [ -z "$review" ]; then echo MISSING; return; fi
   state="$(jq -r '.state' <<<"$review")"
   commit="$(jq -r '.commit_id' <<<"$review")"
-  body="$(jq -r '.body // ""' <<<"$review")"
   case "$state" in
     CHANGES_REQUESTED)
       # blocks at ANY head — GitHub's own semantic: only a newer review
@@ -71,13 +65,11 @@ bot_verdict() { # $1 = login → MISSING | BLOCK | APPROVE | STALE | FEEDBACK
       echo BLOCK ;;
     APPROVED)
       if [ "$commit" = "$HEAD_SHA" ]; then echo APPROVE; else echo STALE; fi ;;
-    COMMENTED)
-      if agreement_signal "$body"; then
-        if [ "$commit" = "$HEAD_SHA" ]; then echo APPROVE; else echo STALE; fi
-      else
-        echo FEEDBACK
-      fi ;;
-    *) echo FEEDBACK ;;
+    *)
+      # COMMENTED and anything else: a non-verdict. The machine does not
+      # read bodies — if the comment is really an agreement, the AUTHOR
+      # says so by requesting the human's review.
+      echo FEEDBACK ;;
   esac
 }
 
@@ -143,9 +135,11 @@ reconcile_pr() { # $1 = PR number; relies on the globals set from its fetch
 
   desired="$(decide_state)"
 
-  # encode the runbook's last step: the round passed → the human is asked,
-  # once. The guard (never requested, never reviewed) makes it idempotent —
-  # and the shared concurrency group in labels.yml makes it race-free.
+  # encode the runbook's last step for the no-judgment case: three formal
+  # head-current approvals → the human is asked, once. The guard (never
+  # requested, never reviewed) makes it idempotent — and the shared
+  # concurrency group in labels.yml makes it race-free. With a comment-only
+  # bot on the panel this path stays cold and the AUTHOR requests the human.
   if [ "$desired" = state:needs-human ] && ! requested "$HUMAN" \
     && [ -z "$(jq -r --arg u "$HUMAN" '[.[] | select(.user.login == $u)] | last | .state // empty' <<<"$REVIEWS_JSON")" ]; then
     run gh api "repos/$REPO/pulls/$n/requested_reviewers" -f "reviewers[]=$HUMAN" --silent
diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index f080fdf..2013c37 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -28,13 +28,16 @@ labels tell you where everything is without opening anything.
    them at their discretion; anything blocking — including a question that
    gates the verdict — is **request changes**, saying what unblocks it. The
    reconciler treats a comment-only review as not-approved, so commenting
-   without a verdict only stalls the PR. (Transitional workaround: until
-   every bot speaks the formal contract, the reconciler counts a COMMENTED
-   review whose body carries a durable agreement signal — "Verdict: Approve",
-   "I agree with everything", a leading ✅ — as an approval, bound to the
-   current head SHA.)
-6. **When all three approve**, the final review goes to the maintainer — the
-   labels workflow requests it automatically.
+   without a verdict only stalls the PR. The machine never reads review
+   bodies: when a comment-only reviewer's line is really an agreement, that
+   judgment belongs to the **author** — escalate by requesting the
+   maintainer's review (step 6), and the reconciler flips the label on that
+   request, because an explicit request is a fact it can trust.
+6. **When the round passes, the author hands the PR to the maintainer** by
+   requesting their review — that request is what flips `state:needs-human`.
+   With three formal head-current approvals the labels workflow requests it
+   automatically; when part of the panel is comment-only, reading their
+   agreement is the author's judgment, so the author makes the request.
 7. **Checks must be green**: `shellcheck` and `bash test/cli.sh` locally
    mirror what CI runs; the multi-user rehearsal runs in CI on a real Incus.
 
diff --git a/LABELS.md b/LABELS.md
index 24e78b6..612b38c 100644
--- a/LABELS.md
+++ b/LABELS.md
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ single reply, and a human takes the final review.
 | `state:building` | `#FBCA04` | the coding agent, still building | PR opened as draft | marked ready + bot reviews requested |
 | `state:bots-reviewing` | `#1D76DB` | the reviewer bots to finish the round | ready with reviews requested, or fixes pushed and reviews re-requested | all three bots have reviewed the round |
 | `state:addressing` | `#D93F0B` | the coding agent to reply and push fixes | all bots reviewed the round, not all approved | the single round-reply is posted and fixes pushed |
-| `state:needs-human` | `#8250DF` | the human reviewer | all three bots approve | merged — or changes requested, which cycles back to `state:addressing` |
+| `state:needs-human` | `#8250DF` | the human reviewer | the human review is requested — by the author when the round passes, or automatically on three formal head-current approvals | merged — or changes requested, which cycles back to `state:addressing` |
 
 `bots-reviewing` and `addressing` are deliberately distinct: staleness in the
 first means *poke the bots*, staleness in the second means *the agent dropped
diff --git a/test/labels-reconcile.sh b/test/labels-reconcile.sh
index 13a5e5f..643546b 100644
--- a/test/labels-reconcile.sh
+++ b/test/labels-reconcile.sh
@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
 set -euo pipefail
 
-# Fixture tests for the labels-reconcile state machine — the transitions #85's
-# review demanded proof of: comment-only agreement closes the gate, a stale
-# approval does not promote unreviewed code, a comment without a verdict parks
-# the PR on the agent, and an explicit human request outranks everything.
+# Fixture tests for the labels-reconcile state machine: a comment is a
+# non-verdict whatever its body says (the AUTHOR escalates by requesting the
+# human), a stale approval does not promote unreviewed code, and an explicit
+# human request outranks everything.
 # Dependency-free beyond jq; no network, no daemon — pure decide_state.
 
 cd "$(dirname "$0")/.."
@@ -49,12 +49,23 @@ REQUESTED="" REVIEWS_JSON="$(reviews \
   "$(rev "$BOT2" APPROVED head1 "" t2)")"
 expect "missing bot review means bots-reviewing" state:bots-reviewing "$(decide_state)"
 
-# -- comment-only agreement closes the gate (the #85 blocker) -----------------
+# -- a comment is a non-verdict, agreement body or not: the author escalates --
 REVIEWS_JSON="$(reviews \
   "$(rev "$BOT1" COMMENTED head1 "✅ **Reviewed — I agree with everything.**" t1)" \
-  "$(rev "$BOT2" APPROVED  head1 "Verdict: I agree with everything and have no additional feedback." t2)" \
-  "$(rev "$BOT3" COMMENTED head1 "**Verdict: Approve** — I agree with this as-is." t3)")"
-expect "comment-only agreement counts as approval" state:needs-human "$(decide_state)"
+  "$(rev "$BOT2" APPROVED  head1 "" t2)" \
+  "$(rev "$BOT3" APPROVED  head1 "" t3)")"
+expect "comment-only agreement still parks on the author" state:addressing "$(decide_state)"
+# ...and the author's escalation — requesting the human — flips it
+REQUESTED="$HUMAN"
+expect "author escalation flips to needs-human" state:needs-human "$(decide_state)"
+REQUESTED=""
+
+# -- three formal approvals need no author judgment ---------------------------
+REVIEWS_JSON="$(reviews \
+  "$(rev "$BOT1" APPROVED head1 "" t1)" \
+  "$(rev "$BOT2" APPROVED head1 "" t2)" \
+  "$(rev "$BOT3" APPROVED head1 "" t3)")"
+expect "three formal approvals reach needs-human" state:needs-human "$(decide_state)"
 
 # -- a comment WITHOUT a verdict parks the PR on the agent --------------------
 REVIEWS_JSON="$(reviews \
@@ -87,7 +98,7 @@ REVIEWS_JSON="$(reviews \
   "$(rev "$BOT1" CHANGES_REQUESTED head1 "blockers" t1)" \
   "$(rev "$BOT1" APPROVED head1 "" t2)" \
   "$(rev "$BOT2" APPROVED head1 "" t3)" \
-  "$(rev "$BOT3" COMMENTED head1 "Verdict: Approve" t4)")"
+  "$(rev "$BOT3" APPROVED head1 "" t4)")"
 expect "later approval supersedes earlier block" state:needs-human "$(decide_state)"
 
 # -- an explicit human request outranks the bot rounds ------------------------
@@ -108,17 +119,5 @@ REQUESTED="$HUMAN"
 expect "re-requested human is needs-human again" state:needs-human "$(decide_state)"
 REQUESTED=""
 
-# -- agreement_signal is conservative -----------------------------------------
-if agreement_signal "I agree with most; feedback below"; then
-  fail=$((fail + 1)); echo "FAIL: 'agree with most' must NOT be agreement"
-else
-  pass=$((pass + 1))
-fi
-if agreement_signal "**Verdict: Request changes** — blockers listed below."; then
-  fail=$((fail + 1)); echo "FAIL: 'Verdict: Request changes' must NOT be agreement"
-else
-  pass=$((pass + 1))
-fi
-
 printf 'labels-reconcile tests: %d passed, %d failed\n' "$pass" "$fail"
 [ "$fail" -eq 0 ]