diff --git a/gitnexus/test/unit/publish-rc-guard.test.ts b/gitnexus/test/unit/publish-rc-guard.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..6cdf0047c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/gitnexus/test/unit/publish-rc-guard.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+import { readFileSync } from 'node:fs';
+import { execFileSync } from 'node:child_process';
+import path from 'node:path';
+import { describe, expect, it } from 'vitest';
+
+/**
+ * Regression coverage for the rc-guard release-PR skip in
+ * .github/workflows/publish.yml. The `chore: release vX.Y.Z` subject match is
+ * load-bearing: it prevents an RC build firing on the release-PR commit from
+ * racing the imminent stable-tag push on the same SHA (see the v1.6.4 race
+ * history referenced in the workflow comments). This test pins the exact
+ * regex shipped in the workflow by extracting it from the YAML and running it
+ * under the same bash semantics (`shopt -s nocasematch`, anchored POSIX ERE).
+ */
+const REPO_ROOT = path.resolve(__dirname, '../../..');
+const WORKFLOW = path.join(REPO_ROOT, '.github/workflows/publish.yml');
+
+function releaseSubjectRegex(): string {
+  const yaml = readFileSync(WORKFLOW, 'utf8');
+  const match = yaml.match(/RELEASE_SUBJECT_RE='([^']+)'/);
+  if (!match) {
+    throw new Error('RELEASE_SUBJECT_RE not found in publish.yml — did the rc-guard Decide step change?');
+  }
+  return match[1];
+}
+
+function subjectMatches(subject: string, regex: string): boolean {
+  const script = [
+    'set -euo pipefail',
+    'shopt -s nocasematch',
+    `SUBJECT=${JSON.stringify(subject)}`,
+    `REGEX=${JSON.stringify(regex)}`,
+    '[[ "$SUBJECT" =~ $REGEX ]] && echo MATCH || echo NO_MATCH',
+    'shopt -u nocasematch',
+  ].join('\n');
+  const out = execFileSync('bash', ['-c', script], { encoding: 'utf8' }).trim();
+  return out === 'MATCH';
+}
+
+describe('rc-guard release-subject regex (publish.yml)', () => {
+  const regex = releaseSubjectRegex();
+
+  it('matches canonical release subjects', () => {
+    expect(subjectMatches('chore: release v1.6.4', regex)).toBe(true);
+    expect(subjectMatches('chore: release v10.20.30', regex)).toBe(true);
+  });
+
+  it('matches squash-merge subjects with the (#NNNN) suffix', () => {
+    expect(subjectMatches('chore: release v1.6.4 (#1474)', regex)).toBe(true);
+  });
+
+  it('stays case-insensitive for IDE auto-capitalization', () => {
+    expect(subjectMatches('Chore: Release v1.2.3', regex)).toBe(true);
+  });
+
+  it('does not match ordinary chore commits', () => {
+    expect(subjectMatches('chore: bump deps (#1500)', regex)).toBe(false);
+  });
+
+  it('does not match release-like subjects with extra suffixes or prefixes', () => {
+    expect(subjectMatches('chore: release v1.6.4 hotfix', regex)).toBe(false);
+    expect(subjectMatches('revert: chore: release v1.6.4', regex)).toBe(false);
+  });
+
+  it('requires a full semver', () => {
+    expect(subjectMatches('chore: release v1.6', regex)).toBe(false);
+    expect(subjectMatches('chore: release v1.6.x', regex)).toBe(false);
+  });
+});