diff --git a/AGENTS.md b/AGENTS.md
index 507e878..0cf5cdf 100644
--- a/AGENTS.md
+++ b/AGENTS.md
@@ -9,3 +9,4 @@
 ## general
 
 - every chisel feature added by patch files must be behind `CHISEL_HACKS` env variable check. without `CHISEL_HACKS`, chisel ought to behave identially to upstream chisel.
+- PR messages should be very simple, ideally one sentence. they do not need to include all the information about the PR.
diff --git a/makefile b/makefile
index 9fec740..11b9a55 100644
--- a/makefile
+++ b/makefile
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ DOCKER ?= docker
 # Cross-compiled go binaries baked into bread-chisel-releases + bread-test.
 # Pinned to specific upstream commits for reproducibility.
 CHISEL_REF := v1.5.1
-SPREAD_REF := 9fdce848027b944a50d25ed2271f17c213b44bd5
+SPREAD_REF := 2026.07.12
 GO_BUILDER_IMAGE := ubuntu/go:1.25-26.04_edge
 # Docker CLI built from docker/cli source at tag v$(DOCKER_VERSION); ubuntu
 # apt's docker.io is built with go 1.24 and crashes under qemu emulation, and