Why: Returning true from scratchProject on a lookup error closed the isolation gates correctly, but the same helper also skipped RDM observation and project context for a normal project during a transient store failure. Evidence: go test ./internal/runmgr ./internal/cmdbus ./internal/app ./internal/server ./internal/store pass locally (SELF); CI is authoritative. Impact: confirmedScratchProject (lookup succeeded and marked scratch) drives the relaxing gates; scratchProject (lookup error => true) keeps driving the tightening ones. Refs: Agent-System-Backend#241; agent-exec receipt u2d-run (pi, success) Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com>