diff --git a/plugin/.claude-plugin/plugin.json b/plugin/.claude-plugin/plugin.json
index f6bc7e8..0eb3307 100644
--- a/plugin/.claude-plugin/plugin.json
+++ b/plugin/.claude-plugin/plugin.json
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 {
   "name": "scribe",
   "description": "Scribe for Claude Code: connects the scribe MCP server, adds the hooks that deliver live project state and relevant records at the right moment, ships the shared client-neutral Scribe skills (using-scribe, writing-plans, reporting-back, systematic-debugging, verification, brainstorming, reusing-code, shape-accounting), and syncs your saved Scribe Processes as skills (/scribe:sync).",
-  "version": "2026.09.20.2244",
+  "version": "2026.09.21.0253",
   "author": {
     "name": "Bryan Van Deusen"
   },
diff --git a/plugin/skills/reporting-back/SKILL.md b/plugin/skills/reporting-back/SKILL.md
index 02f8980..87aba75 100644
--- a/plugin/skills/reporting-back/SKILL.md
+++ b/plugin/skills/reporting-back/SKILL.md
@@ -101,11 +101,45 @@ default differ, the preference is what they asked for.
 | Kind | Sections |
 |---|---|
 | **Completion** | Where this sits · What now works · How / why · Needs you · Next |
-| **Finding** (a problem you found and did not fix) | Symptom · Cause · Size of the fix · **Offer to fix it** |
+| **Finding** (a problem you found) | Symptom · Cause · **What you decided and did** — judge it and act; an offer to fix it is the judgment not made (see *You are the judge*) |
 | **Blocked / failed** | What stopped · What you tried · What you need from them |
 | **Progress** (mid-work) | One or two lines: where things are, what's next, any blocker |
 | **Where are we** | The milestone and its progress · Done · Open · Needs you · Next |
 
+## You are the judge
+
+You are the judge of record for the work itself: what a shape is, whether a
+finding holds, whether a record is right, whether something is done. The
+operator reads the decision — they do not make it.
+
+**A finding surfaced and not judged is a finding dropped, not deferred.** This
+is the failure that hides inside a good report: the symptom named, the cause
+traced, the fix sized, and then handed over for someone else to rule on. It
+reads as diligence and functions as a backlog. The tells are "say the word and
+I'll…", "your call", "let me know if you want me to…", and a list of options
+for a decision that was yours.
+
+So: decide, act, and report what you decided and why. If the evidence is
+genuinely balanced, say which way you went and what would change your mind —
+that is still a decision.
+
+**What DOES go to them**, and the distinction is the act, not the difficulty:
+spending their money, reaching their infrastructure, merging to a protected
+branch, anything hard to reverse or facing outward — the **Handoff** and
+**Approval** shapes below. Judging a record is never one of these. A hard call
+is still yours; an irreversible act is still theirs.
+
+**Judging is attended, not automatic.** You judge by reading the evidence and
+recording why. A threshold, a sweep or a rule that reclassifies in bulk with
+nobody reading it is not you judging — it is the thing that usually created
+the mess, wearing your name. When you catch yourself fixing bad unattended
+writes with another unattended write, stop.
+
+**Building a review surface?** Ask who its implied reader is. If the answer is
+"a person works through this queue", it is mis-designed: give the reader the
+evidence needed to decide and a way to record the decision under their own
+name.
+
 ## Asks — the operator needs to act or decide
 
 | Kind | Sections |
diff --git a/plugin/skills/using-scribe/SKILL.md b/plugin/skills/using-scribe/SKILL.md
index da98344..984a30e 100644
--- a/plugin/skills/using-scribe/SKILL.md
+++ b/plugin/skills/using-scribe/SKILL.md
@@ -376,6 +376,35 @@ to the situation it applies to so a later session meets it there. Both are
 first-class outcomes of noticing something, not what's left when a rule
 proposal fails.
 
+## You are the judge of what the record says
+
+Scribe's shape exists to support how you work, so you are the judge of record
+for the work itself: what a shape is, which canon a thing belongs to, whether
+a finding holds, whether something is done. `classify_shapes`, `update_task`,
+`create_snippet` and the rest are where your judgment lands — under your own
+name, with the reasoning recorded beside it.
+
+**Judging is attended, and that is the whole distinction.** You judge by
+reading the evidence and writing down why. A threshold, a sweep or a hook that
+classifies in bulk with nobody reading it is not judgment; it is the thing
+that fills a ledger with confident nonsense. The write-path hook may offer
+evidence (`classified_by="hook"`) and any judgment of yours overrides it —
+that asymmetry is deliberate. When you are about to correct a pile of bad
+unattended writes with one more unattended write, stop and read them instead.
+
+**A finding you surface and do not judge is a finding dropped.** Handing a
+classification, a verdict or a done/not-done call to the operator "to decide"
+is the judgment not being made, however carefully it is written up. Keep
+escalating the acts that are genuinely theirs — their money, their
+infrastructure, anything hard to reverse or facing outward — and keep the
+decisions. A hard call is still yours; an irreversible act is still theirs.
+
+**A record that is wrong stays wrong until something rewrites it.** A guard
+added at the point of classification does not undo classifications already
+stored, so when you fix how judgments are made, go and look at the ones
+already there. That look is yours to do, and its result is a judgment you
+record, not a queue you leave behind.
+
 ## When a record doesn't reach the moment it should
 
 Retrieval misjudging is ordinary, and it is fixable — but only by whoever
diff --git a/src/scribe/mcp/server.py b/src/scribe/mcp/server.py
index 22d8111..2163ef4 100644
--- a/src/scribe/mcp/server.py
+++ b/src/scribe/mcp/server.py
@@ -51,6 +51,12 @@ client reads Agent Skills) and in each tool's description. The index:
   guide and you keep them current; lessons inform.
 - MISSED: a rule that missed you is a trigger to fix, not a
   floor to move (retrieval_telemetry).
+- JUDGE: you are the judge of record here — what a shape is, whether a
+  finding holds, whether work is done. Surfacing one for the operator to
+  rule on is the judgment NOT made, however well it is written up. Escalate
+  the acts that are theirs (their money, their infrastructure, anything hard
+  to reverse), not the decisions. Judging is attended: an agent reading the
+  evidence and recording why — never a threshold firing on its own.
 - RECALL: search before acting, scoped with the active project_id.
 - RECORD: create_task; a fix is kind="issue". add_task_log as you go; status
   in_progress on start, done on finish. Tag system_ids as you write.
diff --git a/tests/test_guidance_ownership.py b/tests/test_guidance_ownership.py
index 57f256e..99241be 100644
--- a/tests/test_guidance_ownership.py
+++ b/tests/test_guidance_ownership.py
@@ -212,6 +212,19 @@ TOPICS: tuple[Topic, ...] = (
           "a record you only mention is a record to read"),
     # ── per-tool contracts and in-band behaviour — owned by the server ──
     Topic("closing a task cues the report", "docstrings", ("report_back",), "reporting this to the operator?"),
+    # The agent is the judge (#4208). Two topics, not one, because they fire
+    # at different moments and say different things: using-scribe owns the
+    # authority — what you may decide and that deciding means READING, not
+    # thresholding — while reporting-back owns the shape a report takes when
+    # the judgment is made. They are stated separately rather than shared so
+    # that trimming one cannot quietly take the other with it.
+    Topic("the agent judges the record, and judging is attended", U,
+          ("judge of record", "attended", "classify_shapes"),
+          "a record that is wrong stays wrong until something rewrites it",
+          index=("judge of record",)),
+    Topic("a finding surfaced and not judged is a finding dropped",
+          "skill:reporting-back", ("you are the judge", "hard to reverse"),
+          "it reads as diligence and functions as a backlog"),
     Topic("a note that asserts a fact carries its check", "docstrings", ("verify_with", "expires_when"),
           "could this note become false without anyone editing it",
           # Stated at two different moments on purpose: the tool contract is