diff --git a/.github/workflows/squad-workflow-lint.yml b/.github/workflows/squad-workflow-lint.yml
index 920651424..30c78d443 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/squad-workflow-lint.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/squad-workflow-lint.yml
@@ -65,8 +65,49 @@ jobs:
 
       - name: Lint .github/workflows/*.yml
         run: |
-          echo "--- Linting .github/workflows/ ---"
-          actionlint .github/workflows/*.yml
+          # Why we skip machine-generated files:
+          #
+          # actionlint v1.7.12 is the current latest release and CANNOT be upgraded to fix
+          # these; the tool simply lags GitHub's evolving feature set.  Two known gaps:
+          #
+          #   • "copilot-requests: write" — a real, current GitHub Actions permission scope
+          #     used by GitHub's own gh-aw (Agentic Workflows) toolchain.
+          #   • "concurrency.queue: max" — a newer real Actions concurrency feature.
+          #
+          # The files that trigger these errors are DO-NOT-EDIT compiler output produced by
+          # gh-aw's `gh aw compile` toolchain (*.lock.yml files) or by gh-aw's own code
+          # generators (e.g. agentics-maintenance.yml).  They carry a header identifying them
+          # as generated and are validated upstream by gh-aw's own toolchain.  Editing them
+          # is NOT acceptable — they will be clobbered on the next compile/generate cycle.
+          #
+          # Detection strategy: skip any workflow whose first 5 lines contain "automatically
+          # generated" or "DO NOT EDIT".  This is header-based rather than filename-based so
+          # it automatically covers future gh-aw generated files without manual maintenance.
+          # Hand-authored workflows never carry such a header, so they always get linted.
+
+          echo "--- Linting .github/workflows/ (skipping DO-NOT-EDIT generated files) ---"
+          skipped=()
+          to_lint=()
+          for f in .github/workflows/*.yml; do
+            if head -5 "$f" | grep -qiE "(automatically generated|DO NOT EDIT)"; then
+              skipped+=("$f")
+            else
+              to_lint+=("$f")
+            fi
+          done
+
+          if [ ${#skipped[@]} -gt 0 ]; then
+            echo "⏭  Skipped (DO-NOT-EDIT generated files — validated by upstream toolchain):"
+            for f in "${skipped[@]}"; do echo "     $f"; done
+          fi
+
+          if [ ${#to_lint[@]} -gt 0 ]; then
+            echo "🔍 Linting ${#to_lint[@]} hand-authored workflow(s):"
+            for f in "${to_lint[@]}"; do echo "     $f"; done
+            actionlint "${to_lint[@]}"
+          else
+            echo "⚠️  No hand-authored workflows found to lint."
+          fi
 
       - name: Lint squad-cli template workflows
         run: |
diff --git a/test/template-sync.test.ts b/test/template-sync.test.ts
index 81d776367..911474b69 100644
--- a/test/template-sync.test.ts
+++ b/test/template-sync.test.ts
@@ -118,6 +118,21 @@ const CASTING_POLICY_LOCATIONS = [
 // ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 describe('dynamic template enumeration (all synced files)', () => {
+  // Re-sync immediately before byte comparisons to guard against a race
+  // condition with test/init-scaffolding.test.ts.  That suite runs runInit()
+  // with a subdirectory of the repo root as cwd; in monorepo mode the init
+  // command places squad.agent.md at the real git root (.github/agents/) via
+  // stampVersion(), which races with the file-level beforeAll sync.  A
+  // describe-scoped beforeAll runs synchronously, right before any test in
+  // this suite, minimising the window to near-zero.
+  beforeAll(() => {
+    execSync('node scripts/sync-templates.mjs', {
+      cwd: ROOT,
+      encoding: 'utf-8',
+      timeout: 60_000,
+    });
+  });
+
   const sourceFiles = collectFiles(SOURCE_DIR);
 
   it('.squad-templates/ contains files to sync', () => {
@@ -175,12 +190,29 @@ describe('sync-templates.mjs script execution', () => {
 // 3. Negative guard — .github/agents/ should only have squad.agent.md
 // ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
+// Files in .github/agents/ that are NOT produced by Squad's template sync but
+// are legitimately present because other toolchains share this directory:
+//
+//   • agentic-workflows.md — installed by `gh aw init` (GitHub Agentic Workflows
+//     dispatcher agent).  Squad does not create or own this file; gh-aw does.
+//
+// Add entries here when a new well-known third-party agent is introduced.
+// Any file NOT in this allowlist and NOT squad.agent.md will still fail the test.
+const KNOWN_NON_SQUAD_AGENTS = new Set(['agentic-workflows.md']);
+
 describe('.github/agents/ contains only squad.agent.md', () => {
   it('has no files beyond squad.agent.md from the sync', () => {
     const agentDir = resolve(ROOT, AGENT_MD_EXTRA_TARGET);
     expect(existsSync(agentDir), '.github/agents/ should exist').toBe(true);
     const files = readdirSync(agentDir);
-    expect(files).toEqual([AGENT_MD_FILE]);
+    const unexpected = files.filter(
+      f => f !== AGENT_MD_FILE && !KNOWN_NON_SQUAD_AGENTS.has(f),
+    );
+    expect(
+      unexpected,
+      `unexpected file(s) in .github/agents/ that are neither squad.agent.md nor a known third-party agent: ${unexpected.join(', ')}`,
+    ).toEqual([]);
+    expect(files, '.github/agents/ must contain squad.agent.md').toContain(AGENT_MD_FILE);
   });
 });