diff --git a/scripts/apply-protected-cast.sh b/scripts/apply-protected-cast.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..a1553c5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/apply-protected-cast.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# apply-protected-cast.sh — RUNS ON DANKSERVER. Rewrite the recipe's
+# PROTECTED-BEGIN/END section from Swift's OWN calibration grams: run
+# derive-protected-experts.py over the calib dir, splice its cast lines into
+# the marked section of the recipe in place, keep the pre-edit recipe in the
+# campaign trash. Refuses to run twice (marker text says derived).
+set -euo pipefail
+CALIB=${1:-/home/dank/corpora/calib}
+RECIPE=${2:-/home/dank/serverAppConfigs-swift15/scripts/recipes/qwen4exp-swift15-w4dn8-i8-hc8m.recipe}
+PY=/home/dank/venvs/radcorpus/bin/python
+DERIVE=/home/dank/serverAppConfigs-swift15/scripts/derive-protected-experts.py
+TS=$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S)
+
+grep -q "derive-protected-experts.py rewrote" "$RECIPE" && {
+    echo "recipe already carries derived cast lines; refusing to re-derive" >&2; exit 1; }
+grep -q "PROTECTED-BEGIN" "$RECIPE" || { echo "no PROTECTED markers in $RECIPE" >&2; exit 1; }
+
+"$PY" "$DERIVE" "$CALIB" > "/tmp/protected-cast-$TS.txt"
+N=$(grep -c 'cast dtype=bf16' "/tmp/protected-cast-$TS.txt")
+[ "$N" -ge 2 ] || { echo "derive produced $N cast lines; refusing" >&2; exit 1; }
+echo "derived $N protected experts -> /tmp/protected-cast-$TS.txt"
+
+cp -f "$RECIPE" "/home/dank/.AGENTTRASH/$TS-qwen4exp-swift15-w4dn8-i8-hc8m.recipe"
+"$PY" - "$RECIPE" "/tmp/protected-cast-$TS.txt" <<'PYEOF'
+import sys
+recipe, castfile = sys.argv[1], sys.argv[2]
+lines = open(recipe).read().splitlines()
+cast = [l for l in open(castfile).read().splitlines() if 'cast dtype=bf16' in l]
+out, insec = [], False
+for l in lines:
+    if 'PROTECTED-BEGIN' in l:
+        insec = True
+        out.append(l)
+        out.extend(cast)
+    elif 'PROTECTED-END' in l:
+        insec = False
+        out.append(l)
+        out.append('# (derive-protected-experts.py rewrote this section from Swift\'s own grams)')
+    elif not insec:
+        out.append(l)
+open(recipe, 'w').write('\n'.join(out) + '\n')
+print(f'spliced {len(cast)} cast lines into {recipe}')
+PYEOF
diff --git a/scripts/kld-gate-swift15.sh b/scripts/kld-gate-swift15.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..f67f3b9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/kld-gate-swift15.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,86 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# kld-gate-swift15.sh — RUNS ON DANKSERVER. Boot the w4dn8 candidate on the
+# serving pin (1.0.13) in --kld-ref mode: score it against the bf16 reference
+# recorded by run-swift15-bf16.sh kld, on the held-out 1.8M-token corpus.
+# Gate (settled design): mean KL <= 0.03 AND top-1 agreement >= 95%.
+# On fail the escalation is gate_up w4nl -> w5nl (+3-4 h), not a re-tune.
+#
+# Shape: the candidate's experts are ~37.6 GiB a rank at w4dn8, under the
+# 40960 MiB pool, so the tier is fully resident — no disk tier here; the
+# record scored the bf16 model at its own (disk-tier) shape, which is a
+# placement choice, not a numerics choice (weights resident are identical).
+set -uo pipefail
+
+PIN_1013=sha256:4c3f484564bb2872784e46b0a59cbd71becc9c1e746e301a3596ffae253c322e
+IMAGE="stilldeadcode/radiance@$PIN_1013"
+RAD=/home/dank/models/rad/qwen4exp-swift15-w4dn8-i8-hc8m.rad
+C=swift15gate
+LOG=/home/dank/logs/swift15_gate.log
+REPORT=/home/dank/corpora/kld-cand.json
+MAX_KL=${FRANK_KLD_GATE_MAX_KL:-0.03}
+MIN_TOP1=${FRANK_KLD_GATE_MIN_TOP1:-95}
+
+restore() { sudo systemctl start frank-primary >/dev/null 2>&1 || true; }
+trap restore EXIT
+sudo systemctl stop frank-primary >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
+podman rm -f "$C" >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
+[ -d /home/dank/corpora/kld-ref ] && [ -n "$(ls /home/dank/corpora/kld-ref)" ] || {
+    echo "no kld reference recorded" >&2; exit 1; }
+
+podman run --rm --name "$C" \
+    --network host --init \
+    --security-opt seccomp=unconfined \
+    --ulimit memlock=-1:-1 \
+    --device /dev/kfd --device /dev/dri \
+    -v /home/dank/models:/models:ro \
+    -v /home/dank/radiance-state:/data \
+    -v /home/dank/corpora/kld-ref:/data/kld-ref:ro \
+    -v /home/dank/corpora/out/kld.jsonl:/data/kld.jsonl:ro \
+    -v /home/dank/corpora:/out \
+    "$IMAGE" \
+    --model /models/rad/$(basename "$RAD") \
+    --tp 2 --placement expert_tiered --host-pool-mib 40960 \
+    --deterministic --gpu-headroom-mib 768 \
+    --num-speculative-tokens 0 \
+    --kv-cache-dtype fp8 --max-model-len 16384 \
+    --ngram-placement ram \
+    --override-chat-template /models/tpl.jinja \
+    --kld-ref /data/kld-ref --kld-corpus /data/kld.jsonl \
+    --vram-kv-mib 3072 --max-num-seqs 4 --max-num-batched-tokens 32768 \
+    --kld-out /out/kld-cand.json 2>&1 | tee "$LOG"
+rc=${PIPESTATUS[0]}
+[ "$rc" -eq 0 ] || { echo "kld run rc=$rc; log: $LOG" >&2; exit "$rc"; }
+
+python3 - "$REPORT" "$MAX_KL" "$MIN_TOP1" <<'PYEOF'
+import json, sys, math
+report, max_kl, min_top1 = sys.argv[1], float(sys.argv[2]), float(sys.argv[3])
+d = json.load(open(report))
+print(json.dumps(d, indent=1)[:4000])
+flat = {}
+def walk(o, path=""):
+    if isinstance(o, dict):
+        for k, v in o.items(): walk(v, f"{path}.{k}" if path else k)
+    elif isinstance(o, list):
+        pass
+    else:
+        flat[path] = o
+walk(d)
+def pick(*pats):
+    for p in pats:
+        for k, v in flat.items():
+            if all(s in k.lower() for s in p) and isinstance(v, (int, float)) \
+               and not (isinstance(v, float) and math.isnan(v)):
+                return k, v
+    return None, None
+klk, kl = pick(("mean", "kl"), ("kl", "mean"), ("mean",))
+tk, t1 = pick(("top1",), ("top", "1"), ("agreement",), ("top-1",))
+t1 = t1 * 100 if t1 is not None and t1 <= 1 else t1
+print(f"GATE mean_kl: {kl!r} ({klk}) <= {max_kl}? top1: {t1!r} ({tk}) >= {min_top1}?")
+if kl is None or t1 is None:
+    print("GATE UNKNOWN — key names not recognised, inspect the report by hand")
+    sys.exit(2)
+ok = kl <= max_kl and t1 >= min_top1
+print("GATE_PASS" if ok else "GATE_FAIL")
+sys.exit(0 if ok else 1)
+PYEOF
+echo "report: $REPORT rows: $REPORT.rows"
diff --git a/scripts/recipes/qwen4exp-swift15-w4dn8-i8-hc8m.recipe b/scripts/recipes/qwen4exp-swift15-w4dn8-i8-hc8m.recipe
index d800668..fc4e0cf 100644
--- a/scripts/recipes/qwen4exp-swift15-w4dn8-i8-hc8m.recipe
+++ b/scripts/recipes/qwen4exp-swift15-w4dn8-i8-hc8m.recipe
@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@
 # law -- an expert whose share of its layer's down-input energy is at least 3% and at least three
 # times its share of the routing, an even count on each rank's half of the layer (the four-bit GEMM
 # takes the rest as two equal tables by parity) by adding that half's next most energetic expert.
+# PROTECTED-BEGIN (rewritten from Swift's OWN grams by derive-protected-experts.py)
 blk.34.ffn_*_exps.407.weight         cast dtype=bf16
 blk.34.ffn_*_exps.496.weight         cast dtype=bf16
 blk.44.ffn_*_exps.292.weight         cast dtype=bf16
@@ -40,6 +41,7 @@ blk.47.ffn_*_exps.122.weight         cast dtype=bf16
 blk.47.ffn_*_exps.143.weight         cast dtype=bf16
 blk.47.ffn_*_exps.399.weight         cast dtype=bf16
 blk.47.ffn_*_exps.445.weight         cast dtype=bf16
+# PROTECTED-END
 
 # Every other routed expert, trunk and MTP layer alike: the down projection as E4M3 codes with a
 # bf16 scale a 128x128 block -- one amax per block, scale = amax/448 rounded to bf16, the exact