diff --git a/docs/TOOLS.md b/docs/TOOLS.md
index 93ff2ed..f93b68d 100644
--- a/docs/TOOLS.md
+++ b/docs/TOOLS.md
@@ -69,6 +69,21 @@ the outside and only one of them is evidence. A hook or a CI step that treats a
 `2` as success has quietly turned the check off. Each script states its codes at
 the top; read them there.
 
+**And a `2` is not automatically a failure either — it is a question.** The
+pre-commit hook learned this the hard way: `secrets.sh` exits `2` on a commit
+that only *deletes* files, because a deletion has no added lines to scan, and
+that is the correct answer. The hook treated every non-zero as a refusal and
+printed *"possible credential in the staged changes"* over a plain `git rm`, so
+deletion-only commits were impossible and the reason given was a security
+problem that did not exist.
+
+The rule that came out of it: **on a `2`, ask whether the check could have had
+anything to look at.** The hook now refuses a `2` whenever the staged diff adds
+lines — because then the scanner did have input and checking nothing is exactly
+the failure `2` reports — and accepts it, saying so, when the diff only removes
+content. Both directions are proved with `prove-guard.sh`-style injections
+before either is believed.
+
 The hooks are the other place work gets stopped:
 [`architecture/githooks/README.md`](architecture/githooks/README.md) has the one
 install command and the table of what each hook runs. Note that **`post-commit`
diff --git a/docs/architecture/githooks/README.md b/docs/architecture/githooks/README.md
index 3ae8e3b..8c5cb69 100644
--- a/docs/architecture/githooks/README.md
+++ b/docs/architecture/githooks/README.md
@@ -68,6 +68,12 @@ exactly the failure it claimed to catch.
 It exits `2` for "nothing was checked", and the hook treats `2` as a refusal.
 A missing schema directory is not a clean schema.
 
+**The secret scan's `2` is handled differently, and deliberately.** A commit that
+only deletes files gives it nothing to scan, which is the right answer rather
+than a fault — so the hook accepts a `2` when the staged diff adds no lines, and
+refuses it whenever the diff adds any. Before that distinction existed, `git rm`
+was impossible and the refusal claimed a credential had been found.
+
 **`post-commit` pushes.** That is the intent — the commit that first added a
 pre-commit hook to the project this came from sat unpushed for a day, guarded
 and invisible — but it is a surprise if you were not expecting it. It never