diff --git a/hive-c0re/src/main.rs b/hive-c0re/src/main.rs
index f16d165c..f0274ce5 100644
--- a/hive-c0re/src/main.rs
+++ b/hive-c0re/src/main.rs
@@ -350,19 +350,17 @@ async fn cmd_serve(
         }
     });
     // Knowledge periodic pull: hourly fallback in case the webhook is
-    // missed (e.g. hive-c0re was down during a push). Deliberately does
-    // NOT also fire an immediate pull at startup the way this task used
-    // to: `auto_update::run`'s `NodeKind::KnowledgePull` DAG node (spawned
-    // separately, a few lines up) already does that unconditionally on
-    // every boot. The two used to run concurrently with no lock between
-    // them, both `git pull --ff-only`-ing the same working tree — a real
-    // race, and the likely root cause of the "local changes would be
-    // overwritten" wedge this file's `pull()` now defends against
-    // (`reset --hard` before every pull). Removing the redundant caller
-    // fixes the race at its source instead of just self-healing after it.
+    // missed (e.g. hive-c0re was down during a push). First fires at
+    // startup (immediate pull after the clone is already present).
     let mut knowledge_shutdown = coord.shutdown_rx();
     let knowledge_coord = coord.clone();
     tokio::spawn(async move {
+        // Initial pull — reconcile any commits that landed while c0re
+        // was offline. Not fed to the health tracker: a startup miss is
+        // expected (the clone may not exist yet) and is logged at debug.
+        if let Err(e) = knowledge::pull(&knowledge_coord).await {
+            tracing::debug!(error = ?e, "knowledge: startup pull skipped (no clone yet?)");
+        }
         // Persistent-failure → banner. An hourly sweep that keeps failing for
         // several hours means the operator's `/knowledge` is drifting; raise a
         // warn banner after 3 consecutive misses so a one-off network blip
diff --git a/hive-c0re/src/workers/knowledge.rs b/hive-c0re/src/workers/knowledge.rs
index 873b0d44..c2e36079 100644
--- a/hive-c0re/src/workers/knowledge.rs
+++ b/hive-c0re/src/workers/knowledge.rs
@@ -254,31 +254,6 @@ pub async fn pull(coord: &Coordinator) -> Result<()> {
         .args(["-C", LOCAL_DIR, "remote", "set-url", "origin", &plain])
         .output()
         .await;
-    // Discard any local drift before pulling — both tracked (`reset --hard`)
-    // and untracked (`clean -fd`). Nothing in this codebase writes to
-    // `LOCAL_DIR` after the initial clone (`seed_readme` runs once, at
-    // creation, before any pull) — this working tree exists to mirror
-    // `origin/main`, not to be edited in place. A tracked file left dirty
-    // by any other means (a stray manual edit on the host, an interrupted
-    // prior operation, or — the actual root cause here — two unsynchronized
-    // boot-time pull callers racing on this same working tree, since fixed
-    // in `main.rs`) would otherwise abort the `--ff-only` merge below with
-    // "local changes would be overwritten"; an untracked file left behind
-    // the same ways aborts it with "untracked working tree files would be
-    // overwritten" instead — same wedge, just `clean`'s failure message
-    // rather than `reset`'s. Either way it wedges every future pull
-    // identically until someone notices and resets it by hand. Best-effort:
-    // a failure here surfaces through the pull's own error below rather
-    // than needing its own branch.
-    let _ = crate::lifecycle::git_command()
-        .args(["-C", LOCAL_DIR, "reset", "--hard", "HEAD"])
-        .output()
-        .await;
-    let _ = crate::lifecycle::git_command()
-        .args(["-C", LOCAL_DIR, "clean", "-fd"])
-        .output()
-        .await;
-
     let before = head_sha().await;
     // The repo is public (`ensure_knowledge_repo` makes it so), so an
     // unauthenticated pull is enough — but authenticate when a token is around,