diff --git a/docs/staging.md b/docs/staging.md
index 4f180d89..2c5553ca 100644
--- a/docs/staging.md
+++ b/docs/staging.md
@@ -15,6 +15,11 @@ Merging to `main` deploys to production, so staging is where a change is tested
 2. Use the changed behavior on `app.staging.tin.computer` with a staging test project.
 3. Write what you did and saw under **Tested on staging** in the pull request.
 
+A change to the deploy scripts themselves (`infra/`) cannot be tried this way, because
+deploy-staging always runs `main`'s scripts. Run the branch's `infra/deploy.sh` with
+`TIN_LITE_DEPLOY_TARGET=staging` from a workstation, and a maintainer sets the `staging`
+status by hand.
+
 Deploying marks that exact commit with the `staging` status that `main` requires. A new
 push resets it. Changes that cannot reach the running service (docs, tests, evals,
 Markdown) pass without a deploy. Staging has one slot: whoever deployed last owns it until
diff --git a/infra/activate_release.sh b/infra/activate_release.sh
index e95d189f..fa1c4a62 100755
--- a/infra/activate_release.sh
+++ b/infra/activate_release.sh
@@ -100,8 +100,15 @@ rm -f "${upload_dir}/tin-lite-release.tar.gz" "${upload_dir}/tin-lite.env"
 # startup line and the restart counter. A failure stops here and is reported; nothing is
 # rolled back automatically, because a release may have changed the catalog for good.
 deadline=$((SECONDS + ${TIN_LITE_STARTUP_TIMEOUT:-420}))
-until journalctl -u tin-lite-switchboard --since "${restarted_at}" --no-pager -q |
-  grep -q "Application startup complete"; do
+# grep -c reads the whole journal: grep -q would stop early, journalctl would get SIGPIPE,
+# and pipefail would turn a found line into a failure.
+started() {
+  local count
+  count="$(journalctl -u tin-lite-switchboard --since "${restarted_at}" --no-pager -q |
+    grep -c "Application startup complete" || true)"
+  (( count > 0 ))
+}
+until started; do
   if [[ "$(systemctl show -p NRestarts --value tin-lite-switchboard)" != "${restarts_before}" ]]; then
     echo "the new release is restarting; it did not start cleanly (previous: ${previous})" >&2
     journalctl -u tin-lite-switchboard --since "${restarted_at}" --no-pager -q | tail -n 40 >&2