diff --git a/.github/workflows/aatxe-council-selftest.yml b/.github/workflows/aatxe-council-selftest.yml
index 24a1824..a83ef43 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/aatxe-council-selftest.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/aatxe-council-selftest.yml
@@ -17,18 +17,18 @@
 #      so the council can be exercised without an open PR — useful for
 #      smoke-testing the pipeline in isolation (or under `act`).
 #
-#   3. Real LLM, real PR diff (workflow_dispatch with `mode=real` and
-#      the right secret). Requires either `KIMI_API_KEY` (pi-proxy
-#      backend) or Claude Code auth on the runner (claude-code backend).
-#      Posts the sticky `<!-- aatxe:council -->` comment when triggered
-#      on a real PR.
+#   3. Real LLM, real PR diff (auto on `pull_request` when a backend
+#      secret is provisioned; also workflow_dispatch with `mode=real`).
+#      Requires either `ANTHROPIC_API_KEY` (claude-code backend,
+#      preferred — it produced the published 0.857 critical-F1
+#      baseline) or `KIMI_API_KEY` (pi-proxy backend). Posts the sticky
+#      `<!-- aatxe:council -->` comment on the PR.
 #
-# Default `pull_request` triggers mode 1 only — mode 3 is gated behind
-# `workflow_dispatch` so the PR queue never blocks on real-LLM cost or
-# token availability. Once `KIMI_API_KEY` is provisioned as a repo
-# secret + a `pi` install step is wired up, this workflow can be
-# extended to auto-promote `pull_request` runs to mode 3 when the
-# secret is present.
+# `pull_request` runs auto-promote to mode 3 when a backend secret is
+# present on the repo (`ANTHROPIC_API_KEY` → claude-code, else
+# `KIMI_API_KEY` → pi-proxy) — that's the real-PR dogfooding loop. With
+# no secret provisioned (and always on fork PRs, which never see
+# secrets) they fall back to mode 1, free and deterministic.
 
 name: aatxe-council-selftest
 
@@ -66,7 +66,9 @@ permissions:
 jobs:
   selftest:
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
-    timeout-minutes: 10
+    # 20 (not 10): real-LLM runs add minutes of council latency on top
+    # of the cached cargo build. Stub runs still finish well under 10.
+    timeout-minutes: 20
     steps:
       - name: Checkout
         uses: actions/checkout@v4
@@ -85,6 +87,7 @@ jobs:
         env:
           INPUT_MODE: ${{ github.event.inputs.mode }}
           INPUT_PR: ${{ github.event.inputs.pr-number }}
+          INPUT_BACKEND: ${{ github.event.inputs.backend }}
           PR_NUM: ${{ github.event.pull_request.number }}
           # Don't expand the secret into the shell — just check
           # presence by length-of-non-empty. GH masks the value in logs
@@ -92,13 +95,18 @@ jobs:
           HAS_KIMI: ${{ secrets.KIMI_API_KEY != '' }}
           HAS_ANTHROPIC: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY != '' }}
         run: |
-          # Default to `stub` for pull_request events; honor the input
-          # for workflow_dispatch. `real` falls back to `stub` when the
-          # required backend secret isn't present so the job still runs
-          # green instead of erroring on a missing key.
+          # Honor the explicit input for workflow_dispatch. For
+          # pull_request events, auto-promote to `real` when a backend
+          # secret is present (the real-PR dogfooding loop); fall back
+          # to `stub` otherwise — fork PRs never see secrets, so they
+          # always stay on the free deterministic path.
           mode="${INPUT_MODE:-stub}"
           if [ "${{ github.event_name }}" = "pull_request" ]; then
-            mode="stub"
+            if [ "$HAS_ANTHROPIC" = "true" ] || [ "$HAS_KIMI" = "true" ]; then
+              mode="real"
+            else
+              mode="stub"
+            fi
           fi
           pr="${INPUT_PR:-$PR_NUM}"
 
@@ -111,9 +119,22 @@ jobs:
             mode="fixture"
           fi
 
-          echo "mode=$mode"     >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
-          echo "pr=$pr"         >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
-          echo "    → resolved: mode=$mode pr=$pr"
+          # Backend: an explicit dispatch input wins; otherwise prefer
+          # claude-code when ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is set (it produced the
+          # published 0.857 critical-F1 baseline), else pi-proxy.
+          backend="$INPUT_BACKEND"
+          if [ -z "$backend" ]; then
+            if [ "$HAS_ANTHROPIC" = "true" ]; then
+              backend="claude-code"
+            else
+              backend="pi-proxy"
+            fi
+          fi
+
+          echo "mode=$mode"       >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
+          echo "pr=$pr"           >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
+          echo "backend=$backend" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
+          echo "    → resolved: mode=$mode pr=$pr backend=$backend"
 
       - name: Run council (stub LLM, real PR diff)
         if: steps.cfg.outputs.mode == 'stub' && steps.cfg.outputs.pr != ''
@@ -140,6 +161,14 @@ jobs:
             --markdown /tmp/council/selftest.md \
             --out /tmp/council/selftest.json
 
+      # The claude-code backend shells out to the `claude` binary
+      # (`claude --print --output-format json`), authenticated headlessly
+      # via ANTHROPIC_API_KEY. Installed only when a real claude-code run
+      # is about to happen — stub/fixture paths stay free of it.
+      - name: Install claude CLI (claude-code backend)
+        if: steps.cfg.outputs.mode == 'real' && steps.cfg.outputs.backend == 'claude-code'
+        run: npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
+
       - name: Run council (real LLM, real PR diff, post comment)
         if: steps.cfg.outputs.mode == 'real' && steps.cfg.outputs.pr != ''
         env:
@@ -152,7 +181,7 @@ jobs:
           mkdir -p /tmp/council
           ./target/release/aatxe council \
             --pr ${{ steps.cfg.outputs.pr }} \
-            --backend ${{ github.event.inputs.backend || 'pi-proxy' }} \
+            --backend ${{ steps.cfg.outputs.backend }} \
             --confidence-floor 0.55 \
             --markdown /tmp/council/selftest.md \
             --out /tmp/council/selftest.json \
diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index a190dfd..2175de1 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -33,6 +33,8 @@ examples/**/*.tsbuildinfo
 # Local dev artefacts (calibration sweeps, smoke runs, logs)
 tmp/calibrate/
 tmp/smoke/
+tmp/m2/
+tmp/perf-vs/
 tmp/*.log
 tmp/aatxe-go-runner
 
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index d51e00a..d509fa9 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -35,6 +35,12 @@ regex = "1.10"
 walkdir = "2.5"
 time = { version = "0.3", features = ["formatting", "parsing", "macros", "serde"] }
 
+[workspace.lints.clippy]
+await_holding_lock = "deny"
+await_holding_refcell_ref = "deny"
+undocumented_unsafe_blocks = "deny"
+missing_safety_doc = "deny"
+
 [profile.release]
 lto = "thin"
 codegen-units = 1
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 2e23a8f..f316aed 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -642,6 +642,11 @@ install: build-rust ## Install the aatxe binary to ~/.cargo/bin
 	$(call say,install)
 	$(CARGO) install --path crates/aatxe --locked
 
+.PHONY: install-hooks
+install-hooks: ## Install the Git pre-commit hook (cargo fmt/clippy + TS tsc)
+	$(call say,install-hooks)
+	install -m 755 scripts/pre-commit.sh .git/hooks/pre-commit
+
 .PHONY: clean
 clean: ## Remove cargo target/, sdk/ts/dist, sdk/ts/node_modules, examples node_modules, tmp/
 	$(call say,clean)
diff --git a/crates/aatxe-ast/Cargo.toml b/crates/aatxe-ast/Cargo.toml
index 49b0766..ccc3bfd 100644
--- a/crates/aatxe-ast/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/aatxe-ast/Cargo.toml
@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@ license.workspace = true
 repository.workspace = true
 description = "AST-based scope inspection (tree-sitter for TS/Go/Rust) so the aatxe council reasons about symbol-level scope, not flat text. Pure: no IO."
 
+[lints]
+workspace = true
 [lib]
 path = "src/lib.rs"
 
diff --git a/crates/aatxe-core/Cargo.toml b/crates/aatxe-core/Cargo.toml
index 9d1f365..a2592ef 100644
--- a/crates/aatxe-core/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/aatxe-core/Cargo.toml
@@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ readme = "README.md"
 keywords = ["benchmark", "performance", "regression", "statistics", "ci"]
 categories = ["development-tools::profiling", "development-tools::testing"]
 
+[lints]
+workspace = true
 [lib]
 path = "src/lib.rs"
 
diff --git a/crates/aatxe-council/Cargo.toml b/crates/aatxe-council/Cargo.toml
index 1e15162..a8c8139 100644
--- a/crates/aatxe-council/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/aatxe-council/Cargo.toml
@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@ license.workspace = true
 repository.workspace = true
 description = "Pure orchestration for the aatxe agent council: a single-layer mixture-of-agents PR reviewer with a dedicated judge"
 
+[lints]
+workspace = true
 [dependencies]
 aatxe-core = { path = "../aatxe-core" }
 serde = { workspace = true }
diff --git a/crates/aatxe-evals/Cargo.toml b/crates/aatxe-evals/Cargo.toml
index 4eb2dae..620c87b 100644
--- a/crates/aatxe-evals/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/aatxe-evals/Cargo.toml
@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@ license.workspace = true
 repository.workspace = true
 description = "Eval harness for aatxe — scores the council pipeline against labeled PR diffs and the stats engine against synthetic ground-truth benchmark pairs."
 
+[lints]
+workspace = true
 [lib]
 path = "src/lib.rs"
 
diff --git a/crates/aatxe-learn/Cargo.toml b/crates/aatxe-learn/Cargo.toml
index 82a40f6..3715e71 100644
--- a/crates/aatxe-learn/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/aatxe-learn/Cargo.toml
@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@ license.workspace = true
 repository.workspace = true
 description = "Self-healing learning corpus for the aatxe council — distills the best human feedback on prior PRs into project-specific guidance the council reads from a GitHub Actions artifact"
 
+[lints]
+workspace = true
 [dependencies]
 aatxe-council = { path = "../aatxe-council" }
 serde = { workspace = true }
diff --git a/crates/aatxe/Cargo.toml b/crates/aatxe/Cargo.toml
index 7dcd021..e1c3926 100644
--- a/crates/aatxe/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/aatxe/Cargo.toml
@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@ license.workspace = true
 repository.workspace = true
 description = "Statistical microbenchmark + regression-gate CLI for TypeScript, Go, and Rust"
 
+[lints]
+workspace = true
 [[bin]]
 name = "aatxe"
 path = "src/main.rs"
diff --git a/examples/big-diff-bench/Cargo.toml b/examples/big-diff-bench/Cargo.toml
index 131b6d6..a643f87 100644
--- a/examples/big-diff-bench/Cargo.toml
+++ b/examples/big-diff-bench/Cargo.toml
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@ version = "0.1.0"
 edition = "2021"
 publish = false
 
+[lints]
+workspace = true
 [[bin]]
 name = "aatxe-big-diff-bench"
 path = "src/main.rs"
diff --git a/examples/council-bench/Cargo.toml b/examples/council-bench/Cargo.toml
index b159059..c2ca0a6 100644
--- a/examples/council-bench/Cargo.toml
+++ b/examples/council-bench/Cargo.toml
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@ version = "0.1.0"
 edition = "2021"
 publish = false
 
+[lints]
+workspace = true
 [[bin]]
 name = "aatxe-council-bench"
 path = "src/main.rs"
diff --git a/examples/rust-example/Cargo.toml b/examples/rust-example/Cargo.toml
index 3b4700e..fedfc83 100644
--- a/examples/rust-example/Cargo.toml
+++ b/examples/rust-example/Cargo.toml
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@ version = "0.1.0"
 edition = "2021"
 publish = false
 
+[lints]
+workspace = true
 [[bin]]
 name = "aatxe-rust-runner"
 path = "src/main.rs"
diff --git a/scripts/pre-commit.sh b/scripts/pre-commit.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..b147788
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/pre-commit.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# Aatxe pre-commit hook.
+#
+# Installed via `make install-hooks`. Runs only on files staged for commit.
+# Fails fast on formatting, clippy, or TS type errors so `origin/master` stays
+# green without a separate CI round-trip.
+
+set -euo pipefail
+
+cd "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)"
+
+staged=$(git diff --cached --name-only --diff-filter=ACM)
+rust_staged=$(echo "$staged" | grep '\.rs$' || true)
+ts_staged=$(echo "$staged" | grep '^sdk/ts/.*\.ts$' || true)
+
+if [ -n "$rust_staged" ]; then
+    printf '\033[1;34m▶ cargo fmt --check\033[0m\n'
+    cargo fmt --all -- --check
+
+    printf '\033[1;34m▶ cargo clippy\033[0m\n'
+    cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings
+fi
+
+if [ -n "$ts_staged" ]; then
+    printf '\033[1;34m▶ tsc --noEmit\033[0m\n'
+    cd sdk/ts
+    if [ ! -d node_modules ]; then
+        npm install --silent
+    fi
+    npx tsc --noEmit -p tsconfig.json
+fi
+
+printf '\033[1;32m✅ pre-commit checks passed\033[0m\n'
diff --git a/sdk/rust/Cargo.toml b/sdk/rust/Cargo.toml
index 9a2468f..0f1837f 100644
--- a/sdk/rust/Cargo.toml
+++ b/sdk/rust/Cargo.toml
@@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ readme = "README.md"
 keywords = ["benchmark", "microbenchmark", "performance", "regression", "ci"]
 categories = ["development-tools::profiling", "development-tools::testing"]
 
+[lints]
+workspace = true
 [lib]
 path = "src/lib.rs"