diff --git a/scripts/action_anchor_resolve.py b/scripts/action_anchor_resolve.py
index 258622c..276e536 100644
--- a/scripts/action_anchor_resolve.py
+++ b/scripts/action_anchor_resolve.py
@@ -71,9 +71,17 @@
     "temporary failure", "cancelled", "canceled",
 )
 # Only these reach `contradicted`: an attestation WAS found and did not survive.
+#
+# `verifying with issuer` is the REAL shape, captured from live gh against this repo's
+# first verifiable attestation with a deliberately wrong --signer-workflow
+# (scripts/fixtures/gh_attestation_verify/signer_denied.txt). The rest of this tuple was
+# a pre-merge guess, and the guess did not match: without this marker the most common
+# denial fell through to the fail-closed default and was reported as `unavailable`, which
+# is non-promoting either way but loses D5's observability distinction — "it said no" read
+# as "I could not look". The fixture is why that was caught rather than assumed.
 _CONTRADICTED_MARKERS = (
-    "verification failed", "failed to verify", "signature", "does not match",
-    "not signed by", "unable to verify", "policy", "mismatch",
+    "verifying with issuer", "verification failed", "failed to verify", "signature",
+    "does not match", "not signed by", "unable to verify", "policy", "mismatch",
 )
 
 
diff --git a/scripts/fixtures/gh_attestation_verify/signer_denied.txt b/scripts/fixtures/gh_attestation_verify/signer_denied.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4a6ae2b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/fixtures/gh_attestation_verify/signer_denied.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+
+Error: verifying with issuer "sigstore.dev"
diff --git a/scripts/test_action_anchor_resolve.py b/scripts/test_action_anchor_resolve.py
index 57b0a27..3ae1a59 100644
--- a/scripts/test_action_anchor_resolve.py
+++ b/scripts/test_action_anchor_resolve.py
@@ -22,7 +22,9 @@
 
 ROOT = pathlib.Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent
 SCRIPT = ROOT / "scripts" / "action_anchor_resolve.py"
-FIXTURE_404 = ROOT / "scripts" / "fixtures" / "gh_attestation_verify" / "no_attestation_404.txt"
+_FIXTURES = ROOT / "scripts" / "fixtures" / "gh_attestation_verify"
+FIXTURE_404 = _FIXTURES / "no_attestation_404.txt"
+FIXTURE_DENIED = _FIXTURES / "signer_denied.txt"
 
 _HEAD = "a1" * 32
 _REPO = "SollanSystems/loop-engineer"
@@ -150,6 +152,24 @@ def test_resolve_classifies_the_real_captured_404_stderr(tmp_path):
     assert outputs["anchor-outcome"] == "unavailable"
 
 
+def test_resolve_classifies_the_real_captured_denial_stderr(tmp_path):
+    """M2's second half, capturable only AFTER a verifiable attestation existed.
+
+    Captured from live gh against this repo's first verifiable verdict@1 attestation with
+    a deliberately wrong --signer-workflow. It is the reason the marker set was corrected:
+    the pre-merge guess did not contain gh's real denial shape, so "it said no" was being
+    reported as "I could not look".
+    """
+    assert FIXTURE_DENIED.is_file()
+    captured = FIXTURE_DENIED.read_text(encoding="utf-8")
+    assert "verifying with issuer" in captured
+    bin_dir, _log = _shim(tmp_path, stderr=captured, exit_code=1)
+    proc, outputs, _temp = _resolve(tmp_path, bin_dir=bin_dir)
+    assert proc.returncode == 1
+    assert outputs["anchor-outcome"] == "contradicted"
+    assert "anchor_attestation_contradicted" in proc.stdout
+
+
 def test_resolve_maps_an_unclassifiable_failure_to_unavailable(tmp_path):
     """M2's fallback rule: an unrecognized shape is the most suspicious case."""
     bin_dir, _log = _shim(tmp_path, stderr="weasel", exit_code=1)