diff --git a/lang/el-compiler/runtime/el_runtime.c b/lang/el-compiler/runtime/el_runtime.c
index 12a2075..6b8cbe7 100644
--- a/lang/el-compiler/runtime/el_runtime.c
+++ b/lang/el-compiler/runtime/el_runtime.c
@@ -190,6 +190,7 @@ el_val_t println(el_val_t s) {
     const char* str = EL_CSTR(s);
     if (str) puts(str);
     else     puts("");
+    fflush(stdout);  /* prevent startup logs from silently buffering when stdout→file */
     return 0;
 }
 
@@ -6111,6 +6112,10 @@ static double engram_type_threshold(const char* node_type, const char* tier) {
         if (strcmp(tier, "Lesson")    == 0) return 0.25;
     }
     if (node_type) {
+        /* Knowledge nodes: Canonical/Lesson handled by tier checks above.
+         * Procedural-tier Knowledge (activation_count>=50 migration): 0.20.
+         * (2026-06-29 self-review — mirrors release runtime fix) */
+        if (strcmp(node_type, "Knowledge") == 0) return 0.20;
         if (strcmp(node_type, "Belief") == 0) return 0.30;
         if (strcmp(node_type, "Entity") == 0) return 0.30;
     }
@@ -6481,6 +6486,39 @@ el_val_t engram_node(el_val_t content, el_val_t node_type, el_val_t salience) {
     return el_wrap_str(el_strdup(n->id));
 }
 
+/* engram_is_valid_utf8 — return 1 if s is valid UTF-8, 0 if it contains invalid bytes.
+ * Rejects overlong encodings, surrogate halves, and byte sequences > 4 bytes. */
+static int engram_is_valid_utf8(const char* s) {
+    if (!s) return 1;
+    const unsigned char* p = (const unsigned char*)s;
+    while (*p) {
+        if (*p < 0x80) {
+            /* ASCII */
+            p++;
+        } else if ((*p & 0xE0) == 0xC0) {
+            /* 2-byte sequence */
+            if ((p[1] & 0xC0) != 0x80) return 0;
+            if ((*p & 0xFE) == 0xC0) return 0; /* overlong */
+            p += 2;
+        } else if ((*p & 0xF0) == 0xE0) {
+            /* 3-byte sequence */
+            if ((p[1] & 0xC0) != 0x80 || (p[2] & 0xC0) != 0x80) return 0;
+            if (*p == 0xE0 && (p[1] & 0xE0) == 0x80) return 0; /* overlong */
+            if (*p == 0xED && (p[1] & 0xE0) == 0xA0) return 0; /* surrogate */
+            p += 3;
+        } else if ((*p & 0xF8) == 0xF0) {
+            /* 4-byte sequence */
+            if ((p[1] & 0xC0) != 0x80 || (p[2] & 0xC0) != 0x80 || (p[3] & 0xC0) != 0x80) return 0;
+            if (*p == 0xF0 && (p[1] & 0xF0) == 0x80) return 0; /* overlong */
+            if (*p > 0xF4) return 0; /* above U+10FFFF */
+            p += 4;
+        } else {
+            return 0;
+        }
+    }
+    return 1;
+}
+
 el_val_t engram_node_full(el_val_t content, el_val_t node_type, el_val_t label,
                           el_val_t salience, el_val_t importance, el_val_t confidence,
                           el_val_t tier, el_val_t tags) {
@@ -6494,6 +6532,13 @@ el_val_t engram_node_full(el_val_t content, el_val_t node_type, el_val_t label,
     const char* lb = EL_CSTR(label);
     const char* ti = EL_CSTR(tier);
     const char* tg = EL_CSTR(tags);
+    /* UTF-8 guard: reject content with invalid UTF-8 bytes. Persisting invalid
+     * UTF-8 garbles JSON snapshots and corrupts every subsequent node read. */
+    if (c && !engram_is_valid_utf8(c)) {
+        fprintf(stderr, "[engram] REJECTED node write — content contains invalid UTF-8 (label=%s)\n",
+                lb ? lb : "(null)");
+        return EL_STR("");
+    }
     /* Persistent (el_strdup_persist, NOT el_strdup): these strings are owned by the
      * persistent global node store. el_strdup tracks into the per-request arena, which
      * el_request_end() frees when the creating HTTP request completes — leaving the