diff --git a/.changeset/lifecycle-governance-probe-8906.md b/.changeset/lifecycle-governance-probe-8906.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..9fc4989b06
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changeset/lifecycle-governance-probe-8906.md
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+---
+'@objectstack/objectql': patch
+---
+
+lifecycle: a failed governance row-count probe is no longer indistinguishable from a quiet object
+
+`LifecycleService.checkGovernance()` probed each declared object's row count and swallowed
+every failure with a bare `catch { continue }`. A driver outage therefore read exactly like
+an object with nothing to alert on: no `quota-exceeded`, no `growth`, nothing logged, and
+nothing in the sweep report — and because the failed object also dropped out of the count
+map that becomes the next sweep's baseline, the next sweep could not alert on growth for it
+either.
+
+The probe now discriminates by error type through the shared `isMissingTableError`
+predicate. An unprovisioned table is truthful emptiness and stays silent; every other
+failure is reported per object in the sweep report's existing `errors` list and logged at
+`warn`, both naming the lost growth baseline. No new report field, no new error code, and
+the sweep is still isolated — one object's failed probe never costs the others their
+governance.
diff --git a/packages/objectql/src/lifecycle/lifecycle-service.test.ts b/packages/objectql/src/lifecycle/lifecycle-service.test.ts
index ff82d79276..91238e4370 100644
--- a/packages/objectql/src/lifecycle/lifecycle-service.test.ts
+++ b/packages/objectql/src/lifecycle/lifecycle-service.test.ts
@@ -1095,6 +1095,220 @@ describe('LifecycleService.sweep — governance (P4)', () => {
   });
 });
 
+// #8906 — the governance row-count probe used to fail into `catch { continue }`,
+// which made "this object has nothing worth alerting on" and "the driver could
+// not answer" the same observable event. The damage outlived the sweep: no
+// `quota-exceeded`, no `growth`, AND the object dropped out of `nextCounts`, so
+// the next sweep had no baseline to diff against either.
+//
+// The repair discriminates by error TYPE through the declared
+// `isMissingTableError` predicate and surfaces everything else through the
+// channels that already exist — `report.errors` plus a `warn` — with no new
+// report field (the maintainer's 2026-08-15 disposition for this family:
+// unprovisioned is truthful emptiness, everything else must surface).
+//
+// Every expectation below is written as a LITERAL, never derived from the code
+// under test, and the benign case asserts that the injected throw really fired —
+// otherwise "the sweep carried on" would also be satisfied by a harness that
+// never probed at all.
+describe('LifecycleService.sweep — governance row-count probe failure (#8906)', () => {
+  const PROBED: LifecycleObjectLike = {
+    name: 'sys_job_run',
+    lifecycle: { class: 'telemetry', retention: { maxAge: '30d' } } as any,
+  };
+  /** A second declared object, so "one probe failed" can be told apart from
+   * "the governance leg stopped". */
+  const SIBLING: LifecycleObjectLike = {
+    name: 'sys_audit_log',
+    lifecycle: { class: 'telemetry', retention: { maxAge: '30d' } } as any,
+  };
+
+  function fakeSettings(values: Record<string, unknown>) {
+    return {
+      async get(_ns: string, key: string) {
+        if (key in values) return { value: values[key], source: 'global' };
+        return { value: undefined, source: 'default' };
+      },
+    };
+  }
+
+  /** A driver whose `count` answers per object — throwing for the objects named
+   * in `throwsFor`, and returning `rows` for every other one. */
+  function countingDriver(throwsFor: Record<string, unknown>, rows = 1_500) {
+    const count = vi.fn(async (object: string) => {
+      if (object in throwsFor) throw throwsFor[object];
+      return rows;
+    });
+    return { driver: { name: 'default', count }, count };
+  }
+
+  /** POSITIVE CONTROL — the same harness, nothing injected. Without this, every
+   * refusal below is also consistent with a fixture that never alerts at all. */
+  it('a healthy probe alerts on the quota and reports no error', async () => {
+    const warn = vi.fn();
+    const { driver, count } = countingDriver({});
+    const { engine } = captureEngine([PROBED], { driver });
+    const settings = fakeSettings({ quotas: { sys_job_run: 1_000 } });
+
+    const report = await service(engine, {
+      getSettings: () => settings,
+      logger: { ...silentLogger(), warn },
+      // Alerts go to the sink, so `warn` carries only degradation reports —
+      // an alert of its own logs at `warn` when no sink is registered.
+      onAlert: () => {},
+    }).sweep();
+
+    expect(count).toHaveBeenCalledWith('sys_job_run');
+    expect(report.alerts).toEqual([
+      { type: 'quota-exceeded', object: 'sys_job_run', rowCount: 1_500, quota: 1_000 },
+    ]);
+    expect(report.errors).toEqual([]);
+    expect(warn).not.toHaveBeenCalled();
+  });
+
+  it('a non-benign probe failure is reported per object, at warn, naming the lost baseline', async () => {
+    const warn = vi.fn();
+    const error = vi.fn();
+    const { driver } = countingDriver({ sys_job_run: new Error('connection reset by peer') });
+    const { engine } = captureEngine([PROBED], { driver });
+    const settings = fakeSettings({ quotas: { sys_job_run: 1 } });
+
+    const report = await service(engine, {
+      getSettings: () => settings,
+      logger: { ...silentLogger(), warn, error },
+    }).sweep();
+
+    // The report carries the incomplete fact in the field it already has —
+    // `errors` is the sweep's declared per-object failure channel, and the
+    // sweep's own summary line counts it. No new field was added.
+    expect(report.errors).toEqual([
+      {
+        object: 'sys_job_run',
+        error:
+          'governance row-count probe failed (connection reset by peer) — quota and growth alerting ' +
+          'skipped for this object this sweep, and its growth baseline for the next sweep is lost',
+      },
+    ]);
+    // The damage is still real and still visible: quota 1 would have breached
+    // on any count at all, and no alert could be raised for an object nobody
+    // could count.
+    expect(report.alerts).toEqual([]);
+    expect(warn).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
+      '[lifecycle] governance row-count probe on sys_job_run failed (connection reset by peer); ' +
+        'quota/growth alerting skipped this sweep and the next sweep has no growth baseline for it',
+    );
+    // Reduced ALERTING, not a write that claimed to persist and did not —
+    // `warn`, deliberately, per AGENTS.md "Degradation log levels".
+    expect(error).not.toHaveBeenCalled();
+  });
+
+  it('one failed probe never costs the other objects their governance', async () => {
+    const { driver } = countingDriver({ sys_job_run: new Error('connection reset by peer') }, 2_000);
+    const { engine } = captureEngine([PROBED, SIBLING], { driver });
+    const settings = fakeSettings({ quotas: { sys_job_run: 1, sys_audit_log: 1_000 } });
+
+    const report = await service(engine, { getSettings: () => settings }).sweep();
+
+    expect(report.alerts).toEqual([
+      { type: 'quota-exceeded', object: 'sys_audit_log', rowCount: 2_000, quota: 1_000 },
+    ]);
+    expect(report.errors).toEqual([
+      {
+        object: 'sys_job_run',
+        error:
+          'governance row-count probe failed (connection reset by peer) — quota and growth alerting ' +
+          'skipped for this object this sweep, and its growth baseline for the next sweep is lost',
+      },
+    ]);
+  });
+
+  // The report is where an operator learns that the degradation OUTLIVES the
+  // sweep it happened in. This pins that honestly: the fix makes the loss
+  // visible, it does not invent a baseline to replace it.
+  it('reports the lost baseline rather than repairing it — the next sweep still has no growth delta', async () => {
+    const outage = new Error('connection reset by peer');
+    const throwsFor: Record<string, unknown> = { sys_job_run: outage };
+    const { driver } = countingDriver(throwsFor, 5_000);
+    const { engine } = captureEngine([PROBED], { driver });
+    const settings = fakeSettings({ quotas: { sys_job_run: 100_000 }, growth_alert_rows: 100 });
+    const svc = service(engine, { getSettings: () => settings });
+
+    const first = await svc.sweep();
+    expect(first.errors).toHaveLength(1);
+    expect(first.errors[0].error).toContain('growth baseline for the next sweep is lost');
+
+    // The driver recovers. There is still no `last` to diff 5_000 against, so
+    // no growth alert can be raised — exactly what the first report said.
+    delete throwsFor.sys_job_run;
+    const second = await svc.sweep();
+    expect(second.errors).toEqual([]);
+    expect(second.alerts).toEqual([]);
+
+    // And the baseline is rebuilt from here: the sweep after that CAN alert.
+    const { driver: grown } = countingDriver({}, 6_000);
+    (engine as any).getDriverForObject = () => grown;
+    const third = await svc.sweep();
+    expect(third.alerts).toEqual([
+      { type: 'growth', object: 'sys_job_run', rowCount: 6_000, delta: 1_000 },
+    ]);
+  });
+
+  it('an unprovisioned table stays silent — truthful emptiness, not a swallowed outage', async () => {
+    const warn = vi.fn();
+    const missingTable = new Error('no such table: sys_job_run');
+    const { driver, count } = countingDriver({ sys_job_run: missingTable }, 2_000);
+    const { engine } = captureEngine([PROBED, SIBLING], { driver });
+    const settings = fakeSettings({ quotas: { sys_job_run: 1, sys_audit_log: 1_000 } });
+
+    const report = await service(engine, {
+      getSettings: () => settings,
+      logger: { ...silentLogger(), warn },
+      onAlert: () => {},
+    }).sweep();
+
+    // The injected throw ACTUALLY FIRED — without this, "the sweep continued"
+    // is also what a harness that never probed would produce.
+    expect(count).toHaveBeenCalledWith('sys_job_run');
+    await expect(count.mock.results[0]!.value).rejects.toThrow('no such table: sys_job_run');
+
+    // A table that does not exist holds no rows: no quota to breach, no growth
+    // to measure, nothing to report and nothing to log.
+    expect(report.errors).toEqual([]);
+    expect(warn).not.toHaveBeenCalled();
+    // …and the sweep carried on, proved by the sibling's alert.
+    expect(report.alerts).toEqual([
+      { type: 'quota-exceeded', object: 'sys_audit_log', rowCount: 2_000, quota: 1_000 },
+    ]);
+  });
+
+  // The benign verdict comes from the declared predicate, not from a substring
+  // guess: Postgres phrases a missing COLUMN on an existing relation as
+  // `column "x" of relation "y" does not exist`, which CONTAINS a legal
+  // missing-table phrase. The table is there and its rows were not counted, so
+  // this must surface.
+  it('a missing column on a provisioned table is not benign, though its message contains a table phrase', async () => {
+    const columnGone: Error & { code?: string } = new Error(
+      'column "status" of relation "sys_job_run" does not exist',
+    );
+    columnGone.code = '42703';
+    const { driver } = countingDriver({ sys_job_run: columnGone });
+    const { engine } = captureEngine([PROBED], { driver });
+    const settings = fakeSettings({ quotas: { sys_job_run: 1 } });
+
+    const report = await service(engine, { getSettings: () => settings }).sweep();
+
+    expect(report.errors).toEqual([
+      {
+        object: 'sys_job_run',
+        error:
+          'governance row-count probe failed (column "status" of relation "sys_job_run" does not exist) — ' +
+          'quota and growth alerting skipped for this object this sweep, and its growth baseline for the ' +
+          'next sweep is lost',
+      },
+    ]);
+  });
+});
+
 // #5195 — ADR-0057 P4 lets an operator override any object's window through the
 // `lifecycle` settings namespace, and until this the only validation on that
 // override was "does it parse". That is a side door around #5179's invariant:
diff --git a/packages/objectql/src/lifecycle/lifecycle-service.ts b/packages/objectql/src/lifecycle/lifecycle-service.ts
index fb6b40b254..bd94a51590 100644
--- a/packages/objectql/src/lifecycle/lifecycle-service.ts
+++ b/packages/objectql/src/lifecycle/lifecycle-service.ts
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 
 import type { Lifecycle } from '@objectstack/spec/data';
 import type { DriverQuery } from '@objectstack/spec/contracts';
+import { isMissingTableError } from '@objectstack/metadata/errors';
 import { parseLifecycleDuration } from './duration.js';
 import type {
   DanglingReferenceAuditOptions,
@@ -802,7 +803,64 @@ export class LifecycleService {
       let rowCount: number;
       try {
         rowCount = await driver.count(obj.name);
-      } catch {
+      } catch (error) {
+        // [#8906] A row-count probe that FAILED is not an object with nothing
+        // to say. The bare `catch { continue }` this replaces made the two
+        // indistinguishable, and the damage outlived the sweep it happened in:
+        // the object is skipped for `quota-exceeded` AND for `growth` alerting
+        // this sweep, and — because `nextCounts` is what becomes
+        // `this.lastCounts` below — it is also dropped from the BASELINE, so
+        // the next sweep has no `last` to diff against and cannot alert on
+        // growth either. A driver outage read exactly like a quiet, healthy
+        // object, twice over, with nothing logged and nothing in the report.
+        //
+        // Benign: the object is registered but its TABLE was never provisioned
+        // (schema sync not run yet). It holds no rows, so there is no quota to
+        // breach and no growth to measure — skipping it IS the truth. Asked
+        // through the shared `isMissingTableError` predicate
+        // (`@objectstack/metadata/errors`), never a hand-rolled code test, so
+        // one vocabulary of "benign driver error" serves every seam that needs
+        // one. It stays out of `nextCounts` deliberately: seeding a 0 baseline
+        // for a table that does not exist would fire a phantom `growth` alert
+        // on the first sweep after the table is provisioned and seeded.
+        //
+        // Everything else (connection drop, timeout, permission denial, a
+        // dialect error) means the rows may well exist and simply were not
+        // counted — the maintainer's 2026-08-15 disposition for this family:
+        // unprovisioned is truthful emptiness, everything else must surface.
+        //
+        // It surfaces through the channels that already exist — no new report
+        // field and no new error code. `report.errors` is this sweep's declared
+        // per-object failure channel (the object loop in `sweep()` fills it the
+        // same way) and the sweep's summary line already counts it; the `warn`
+        // matches that loop's level, because the consequence is reduced
+        // ALERTING, not a write that claimed to persist and did not
+        // (AGENTS.md "Degradation log levels"). Both messages name the baseline
+        // loss, since that is the half an operator cannot infer from a report
+        // that is otherwise identical to a healthy one.
+        //
+        // Rethrowing — the shape #8895 took at the `cascadeDeleteRelations`
+        // probe — is deliberately NOT the shape here, and not for uniformity's
+        // sake: there, the caller is a `delete()` that must fail. Here the only
+        // caller is `sweep()`, whose scheduler entry point is `void this.sweep()`
+        // — a throw would land as an unhandled rejection, abandon governance for
+        // every object still queued behind this one, skip `this.lastCounts =
+        // nextCounts` entirely (losing EVERY object's baseline, not just this
+        // one's), and break the documented invariant that a sweep failure is
+        // isolated and never thrown into the scheduler. That is strictly more
+        // damage than the defect being repaired.
+        if (isMissingTableError(error)) continue;
+        const msg = (error as Error)?.message ?? String(error);
+        report.errors.push({
+          object: obj.name,
+          error:
+            `governance row-count probe failed (${msg}) — quota and growth alerting skipped ` +
+            `for this object this sweep, and its growth baseline for the next sweep is lost`,
+        });
+        this.opts.logger.warn(
+          `[lifecycle] governance row-count probe on ${obj.name} failed (${msg}); ` +
+            'quota/growth alerting skipped this sweep and the next sweep has no growth baseline for it',
+        );
         continue;
       }
       nextCounts.set(obj.name, rowCount);