diff --git a/cockpit/ui/src/lib/dashboard/adapters/adapters.test.ts b/cockpit/ui/src/lib/dashboard/adapters/adapters.test.ts
index b2065d4..9641081 100644
--- a/cockpit/ui/src/lib/dashboard/adapters/adapters.test.ts
+++ b/cockpit/ui/src/lib/dashboard/adapters/adapters.test.ts
@@ -85,12 +85,21 @@ describe('audience adapter', () => {
     return { health: async () => alive, posts: async () => posts };
   }
 
-  it('maps post status onto canonical stages', async () => {
+  // Every status below is one Audience actually emits, taken from its generated
+  // PostStatusSchema and pinned in audience.contract.test.ts. The previous version of
+  // this block asserted on 'published', 'rejected' and 'approval-pending' — three
+  // strings Audience has never emitted — so it was green against an invention.
+  it('maps every real post status onto a canonical stage', async () => {
     const cases: Array<[string, string]> = [
       ['draft', 'Spec'],
       ['generating', 'Build'],
-      ['published', 'Live'],
-      ['rejected', 'Archived'],
+      ['ready_for_review', 'Blocked'],
+      ['awaiting_approval', 'Blocked'],
+      ['approved', 'Build'],
+      ['publishing', 'Build'],
+      ['fully_published', 'Live'],
+      ['partially_published', 'Blocked'],
+      ['failed', 'Failed'],
     ];
     for (const [status, expected] of cases) {
       const cards = await audienceCards(reader(true, [{ id: '1', status }]), { now: NOW });
@@ -98,12 +107,21 @@ describe('audience adapter', () => {
     }
   });
 
-  it('approval-pending → Blocked (approval gate)', async () => {
-    const cards = await audienceCards(reader(true, [{ id: '1', status: 'approval-pending', platforms: ['x'] }]), { now: NOW });
+  it('awaiting_approval → Blocked (the approve-before-post gate)', async () => {
+    // The defect this replaces: Audience emits `awaiting_approval`, the adapter
+    // looked for `approval-pending`, so the one gate that must stop for a human
+    // fell through to `default` and never fired.
+    const cards = await audienceCards(reader(true, [{ id: '1', status: 'awaiting_approval' }]), { now: NOW });
     expect(cards[0].stage).toBe('Blocked');
     expect(cards[0].blocked?.gate).toBe('approval');
   });
 
+  it('a status absent from the contract classifies as nothing, and does not throw', async () => {
+    const cards = await audienceCards(reader(true, [{ id: '1', status: 'a_status_from_the_future' }]), { now: NOW });
+    expect(cards[0].stage).not.toBe('Blocked');
+    expect(cards[0].stage).not.toBe('Live');
+  });
+
   it('failed → Failed', async () => {
     const cards = await audienceCards(reader(true, [{ id: '1', status: 'failed' }]), { now: NOW });
     expect(cards[0].stage).toBe('Failed');
@@ -117,7 +135,7 @@ describe('audience adapter', () => {
   });
 
   it('rolls up past the threshold into one card', async () => {
-    const posts = Array.from({ length: 12 }, (_, i) => ({ id: `${i}`, status: i < 3 ? 'approval-pending' : 'published' }));
+    const posts = Array.from({ length: 12 }, (_, i) => ({ id: `${i}`, status: i < 3 ? 'awaiting_approval' : 'fully_published' }));
     const cards = await audienceCards(reader(true, posts), { now: NOW, rollupThreshold: 8 });
     expect(cards).toHaveLength(1);
     expect(cards[0].stage).toBe('Blocked');
diff --git a/cockpit/ui/src/lib/dashboard/adapters/audience.contract.test.ts b/cockpit/ui/src/lib/dashboard/adapters/audience.contract.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..795ed08
--- /dev/null
+++ b/cockpit/ui/src/lib/dashboard/adapters/audience.contract.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+// Wire contract — Audience `GET /posts` status vocabulary, consumer side.
+//
+// Audience generates this enum from its schema (`packages/contracts/src/generated/
+// enums.ts`, `PostStatusSchema`), so unlike the telltale seam the producer side is
+// already authoritative and machine-generated. This file's job is to stop THIS repo
+// drifting from it silently — which is exactly what happened: the §6.2 spec listed a
+// vocabulary taken from a written digest, three of its six strings were fictional,
+// and `awaiting_approval` — the approve-before-post gate — classified as nothing.
+
+import { describe, it, expect } from 'vitest';
+import { createHash } from 'node:crypto';
+import raw from './contracts/audience-post-status.contract.json?raw';
+import type { AudiencePostStatus } from './audience';
+
+// Bump only after re-reading Audience's generated enum and updating the mapping.
+const CONTRACT_SHA256 = 'f1f7f57231511a9fcfd0943bee041115df5065392a7ff85a25ce6d44952e7c64';
+
+const contract = JSON.parse(raw) as { statuses: string[] };
+
+const canonicalSha = (text: string) =>
+  createHash('sha256').update(JSON.stringify(JSON.parse(text))).digest('hex');
+
+// Compile-time exhaustiveness: tsc fails here if AudiencePostStatus gains or loses a
+// member. The runtime assertion below ties this literal to the contract file, so the
+// union, the contract and Audience's own enum cannot drift apart in any direction.
+const DECLARED: Record<AudiencePostStatus, true> = {
+  draft: true,
+  generating: true,
+  ready_for_review: true,
+  awaiting_approval: true,
+  approved: true,
+  publishing: true,
+  fully_published: true,
+  partially_published: true,
+  failed: true,
+};
+
+describe('audience post-status contract', () => {
+  it('the contract has not moved under this repo', () => {
+    expect(canonicalSha(raw)).toBe(CONTRACT_SHA256);
+  });
+
+  it('the declared union is exactly the contract vocabulary', () => {
+    expect(Object.keys(DECLARED).sort()).toEqual([...contract.statuses].sort());
+  });
+
+  it('carries the three strings the old spec invented, as a regression guard', () => {
+    // `approval-pending`, `published` and `rejected` were in the §6.2 table and in
+    // this repo's tests. Audience emits none of them. If one ever reappears in the
+    // contract, something has been copied from prose again rather than the schema.
+    for (const fiction of ['approval-pending', 'published', 'rejected']) {
+      expect(contract.statuses).not.toContain(fiction);
+    }
+  });
+});
diff --git a/cockpit/ui/src/lib/dashboard/adapters/audience.ts b/cockpit/ui/src/lib/dashboard/adapters/audience.ts
index 6633ba1..37bc1b2 100644
--- a/cockpit/ui/src/lib/dashboard/adapters/audience.ts
+++ b/cockpit/ui/src/lib/dashboard/adapters/audience.ts
@@ -12,11 +12,37 @@ import { resolveStage, applyOverride } from '../stage';
 export const AUDIENCE_SOURCE: Source = 'audience';
 
 /** One element of `GET /posts` (the fields the dashboard reads). */
+/**
+ * §6.2's status vocabulary, taken from Audience's own generated contract
+ * (`packages/contracts/src/generated/enums.ts`, `PostStatusSchema`) and pinned in
+ * `contracts/audience-post-status.contract.json`.
+ *
+ * ⚠ The spec's original list — `draft → generating → approval-pending → published`
+ * plus `rejected`/`failed` — was derived from a written digest rather than from the
+ * schema, and three of those six strings Audience never emits. The adapter
+ * implemented the spec faithfully and was therefore wrong: `awaiting_approval`,
+ * the approve-before-post gate, fell through to `default` and never blocked.
+ */
+export type AudiencePostStatus =
+  | 'draft'
+  | 'generating'
+  | 'ready_for_review'
+  | 'awaiting_approval'
+  | 'approved'
+  | 'publishing'
+  | 'fully_published'
+  | 'partially_published'
+  | 'failed';
+
+/** One item of `GET /posts`'s `{ items: [...] }` envelope, as the API returns it. */
 export interface AudiencePost {
   id: string;
-  status: string; // draft | generating | approval-pending | published | rejected | failed
+  /** Widened to `string` on purpose: the wire can carry a status this build has not
+   *  heard of, and `pipelineFor` must classify it rather than crash. */
+  status: string;
   text?: string;
-  platforms?: string[];
+  createdAt?: string;
+  updatedAt?: string | null;
 }
 
 export interface AudienceReader {
@@ -26,27 +52,48 @@ export interface AudienceReader {
 }
 
 // §6.2 mapping table — Audience native post status → canonical pipeline stage.
-function pipelineFor(status: string): {
+type Classification = {
   stage: 'Spec' | 'Build' | 'Live' | 'Archived' | null;
   gate: boolean;
   terminal: boolean;
-} {
-  switch (status) {
-    case 'draft':
-      return { stage: 'Spec', gate: false, terminal: false };
-    case 'generating':
-      return { stage: 'Build', gate: false, terminal: false };
-    case 'approval-pending':
-      return { stage: null, gate: true, terminal: false }; // → Blocked
-    case 'published':
-      return { stage: 'Live', gate: false, terminal: false };
-    case 'rejected':
-      return { stage: 'Archived', gate: false, terminal: false };
-    case 'failed':
-      return { stage: null, gate: false, terminal: true }; // → Failed
-    default:
-      return { stage: null, gate: false, terminal: false };
-  }
+};
+
+/**
+ * Exhaustive by construction: `Record<AudiencePostStatus, …>` fails to compile if
+ * Audience adds a status and this table does not grow with it. That is the whole
+ * point — the previous `switch` had a silent `default`, so five of Audience's nine
+ * statuses classified as "nothing" and no test noticed.
+ */
+const CLASSIFY: Record<AudiencePostStatus, Classification> = {
+  // Straight from the spec's mapping table.
+  draft: { stage: 'Spec', gate: false, terminal: false },
+  generating: { stage: 'Build', gate: false, terminal: false },
+  fully_published: { stage: 'Live', gate: false, terminal: false },
+  failed: { stage: null, gate: false, terminal: true },
+
+  // The spec's "approve-before-post human gate", under its real name.
+  awaiting_approval: { stage: null, gate: true, terminal: false },
+
+  // In flight, no human owed anything.
+  approved: { stage: 'Build', gate: false, terminal: false },
+  publishing: { stage: 'Build', gate: false, terminal: false },
+
+  // ⚠ Two product judgments the spec never contemplated, called out rather than
+  // buried. Both are gated on the principle that the board exists to surface what
+  // needs a person; change them here if the intent differs.
+  //   ready_for_review   — a human must look before it can advance to approval.
+  //   partially_published — some targets published and some did not; someone has to
+  //                         decide about the rest, and `failed` (terminal) is wrong
+  //                         because part of it did ship.
+  ready_for_review: { stage: null, gate: true, terminal: false },
+  partially_published: { stage: null, gate: true, terminal: false },
+};
+
+function pipelineFor(status: string): Classification {
+  // An unknown status is classified as nothing rather than guessed at — the same
+  // posture as the old `default`, but now reachable only by a status genuinely
+  // absent from the pinned contract, not by five of the nine real ones.
+  return CLASSIFY[status as AudiencePostStatus] ?? { stage: null, gate: false, terminal: false };
 }
 
 export interface AudienceAdapterOpts {
@@ -112,7 +159,12 @@ export async function audienceCards(
 
   // Rollup policy: if per-post granularity would swamp the board, emit one card.
   if (posts.length > rollupThreshold) {
-    const awaiting = posts.filter((p) => p.status === 'approval-pending').length;
+    // Derived from the same classification the per-post path uses, never from a
+    // literal. This line previously hardcoded 'approval-pending' independently of
+    // `pipelineFor`, so it would have kept reporting 0 even after the mapping was
+    // corrected — and the rollup is precisely the high-volume case an operator
+    // relies on, where a missed gate hides the most work.
+    const awaiting = posts.filter((p) => pipelineFor(p.status).gate).length;
     const blocked: BlockedInfo | null =
       awaiting > 0
         ? { gate: 'approval', action: `Approve ${awaiting} post${awaiting > 1 ? 's' : ''}`, deepLink: 'audience:///queue' }
@@ -152,7 +204,7 @@ export async function audienceCards(
       source: AUDIENCE_SOURCE,
       name: p.text ? p.text.slice(0, 48) : `post ${p.id}`,
       stage,
-      detail: stage === 'Blocked' || override ? `${p.status} · ${(p.platforms ?? []).join(', ')}` : p.status,
+      detail: p.status,
       blocked,
       stageSource,
       override,
diff --git a/cockpit/ui/src/lib/dashboard/adapters/contracts/audience-post-status.contract.json b/cockpit/ui/src/lib/dashboard/adapters/contracts/audience-post-status.contract.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..de6a348
--- /dev/null
+++ b/cockpit/ui/src/lib/dashboard/adapters/contracts/audience-post-status.contract.json
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+{
+  "contract": "audience GET /v1/posts — post status vocabulary",
+  "version": 1,
+  "producer": "audience · packages/contracts/src/generated/enums.ts · PostStatusSchema",
+  "consumer": "command-center · cockpit/ui/src/lib/dashboard/adapters/audience.ts · pipelineFor",
+  "note": "Generated on the producer side from its schema. Copied here verbatim; the order is the producer's.",
+  "statuses": [
+    "draft",
+    "generating",
+    "ready_for_review",
+    "awaiting_approval",
+    "approved",
+    "publishing",
+    "fully_published",
+    "partially_published",
+    "failed"
+  ],
+  "itemFields": {
+    "id": "string",
+    "status": "PostStatus",
+    "text": "string",
+    "createdAt": "string (iso)",
+    "updatedAt": "string (iso) | null"
+  }
+}
diff --git a/docs/superpowers/specs/2026-06-09-project-dashboard-design.md b/docs/superpowers/specs/2026-06-09-project-dashboard-design.md
index 7216285..c7935ae 100644
--- a/docs/superpowers/specs/2026-06-09-project-dashboard-design.md
+++ b/docs/superpowers/specs/2026-06-09-project-dashboard-design.md
@@ -254,9 +254,20 @@ written against a small interface so the two read paths are swappable without to
 
 ### 6.2 Audience adapter — post-run + backend status
 
-**Native vocabulary** (from the Audience digest): post status
-(`draft → generating → approval-pending → published`, plus `rejected`/`failed`) read via
-`GET /posts` / `GET /posts/:id`; plus **backend liveness** via `GET /health` (`:8080`).
+> **⚠ Corrected 2026-09-08 — the vocabulary below was wrong, and the adapter was wrong because it
+> was faithful to it.** It was taken *"from the Audience digest"* — a prose summary — rather than
+> from Audience's own generated `PostStatusSchema`. Three of the six strings
+> (`approval-pending`, `published`, `rejected`) are ones Audience has **never** emitted, and five of
+> its nine real statuses had no row at all. The practical cost: `awaiting_approval` — this table's
+> own approve-before-post gate — fell through to `default` and **never blocked**, on the per-post
+> path and again in the rollup, which counted the fictional string independently. Pinned now in
+> `adapters/contracts/audience-post-status.contract.json`.
+
+**Native vocabulary** (from `audience/packages/contracts/src/generated/enums.ts`, `PostStatusSchema`):
+post status is one of `draft`, `generating`, `ready_for_review`, `awaiting_approval`, `approved`,
+`publishing`, `fully_published`, `partially_published`, `failed` — read via `GET /posts` (which
+returns an `{ items: [...] }` envelope of `{id, status, text, createdAt, updatedAt}`; note it carries
+**no** `platforms` field) / `GET /posts/:id`; plus **backend liveness** via `GET /health` (`:8080`).
 
 **Mapping to canonical stage:**
 
@@ -265,11 +276,18 @@ written against a small interface so the two read paths are swappable without to
 | backend `/health` down | Idle + `health: "unknown"` | stack not running ⇒ no live project state |
 | `draft` | Spec | composed, not yet generating |
 | `generating` | Build | AI generation in flight |
-| `approval-pending` | **Blocked** (`gate: "approval"`, deep-link `/queue`) | the approve-before-post human gate |
-| `published` | Live | posted to platforms |
-| `rejected` | Archived | (`detail: "rejected"`) |
+| `ready_for_review` | **Blocked** (`gate: "approval"`) | ⚠ *judgment, 2026-09-08* — a human must look before it can advance. The board exists to surface what needs a person |
+| `awaiting_approval` | **Blocked** (`gate: "approval"`, deep-link `/queue`) | the approve-before-post human gate — this row's original intent, under its real name |
+| `approved` | Build | cleared the gate, publish pending; nobody is owed anything |
+| `publishing` | Build | in flight to the platforms |
+| `fully_published` | Live | posted to every target |
+| `partially_published` | **Blocked** (`gate: "approval"`) | ⚠ *judgment, 2026-09-08* — some targets shipped and some did not; `failed` is wrong because part of it is live, and someone must decide about the rest |
 | `failed` | Failed | terminal publish failure |
 
+*The two rows marked ⚠ are product decisions this spec never contemplated, recorded rather than
+buried. Both are gated on the principle that the board surfaces what needs a person; change them in
+`CLASSIFY` if the intent differs.*
+
 Audience contributes **its own status** (per `§4` of the roadmap) — one `ProjectCard` per active
 post run, or a single rolled-up card "Audience: N awaiting approval" if per-post granularity is too
 noisy (the adapter chooses; the board renders whatever cards it gets). Reads go through the same