diff --git a/.github/workflows/deploy-site-task.yml b/.github/workflows/deploy-site-task.yml
index 5964693..f0ca4a9 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/deploy-site-task.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/deploy-site-task.yml
@@ -77,12 +77,12 @@ jobs:
 
       # One update for the job, because each one is a network round trip that can fail on its
       # own. REQUIRE_BROTLI later makes a missing brotli fatal, so this keeps the build from
-      # failing, and git-restore-mtime is what the next step runs.
+      # failing.
       - name: Install build tools step
         run: |
           set -Eeuo pipefail
           sudo apt-get update
-          sudo apt-get install --yes --no-install-recommends brotli git-restore-mtime
+          sudo apt-get install --yes --no-install-recommends brotli
 
       # Git stores no mtimes, so a checkout stamps every file with the moment it was written.
       # The deploy uploads with --link-dest against the previous release, and a file only links
@@ -100,12 +100,42 @@ jobs:
       # began with, so a media file that acquires a bad one stays present, correctly named and
       # unreadable, through every later release. The live check is what notices that, by
       # requesting images and failing on the 403.
-      # `git restore-mtime`, the subcommand form, because the package installs into git's
-      # exec-path at /usr/lib/git-core rather than onto PATH, so the bare name does not resolve.
+      # The action rather than the Ubuntu package, because the package is git-tools v2022.12 and
+      # that release shells out to `git whatchanged`, which current git refuses to run without
+      # `--i-still-use-this` - a flag there is no way to pass through. It failed twelve times in
+      # one step, restored nothing, and exited 0, so every release since #65 was a full copy
+      # while CI reported success. Upstream replaced whatchanged with `git log` in v2025.08, and
+      # this action vendors exactly that version.
       - name: Restore file mtimes step
+        uses: chetan/git-restore-mtime-action@d186aca54f8760da4dec55313195e51ed3ebb0b3 # v2.3
+        with:
+          args: static
+
+      # The step above is the second tool to claim it restored these and not have done it, so
+      # the outcome is asserted rather than the tool trusted. This is the check whose absence
+      # let #65 ship broken: `git restore-mtime` printed "1,052 files to be processed" and then
+      # processed none of them, which reads exactly like success.
+      #
+      # The discriminator is that a restored file cannot be newer than the commit it was dated
+      # from, so no file under static/ may be newer than HEAD's own commit time. A checkout
+      # necessarily happens after the commit it checks out, so an unrestored tree is always
+      # newer than that bound and a restored one never is. It calibrates itself from the
+      # repository, so no measured constant goes stale as content moves.
+      #
+      # Counting distinct mtime days looks like the obvious check and is wrong: git restores
+      # the LAST COMMIT time, and static/ arrived in a bulk import, so a correctly restored
+      # tree here has exactly one distinct day. That version was written first and rejected
+      # only because it was run against a real restored clone before being trusted.
+      - name: Assert mtimes were restored step
         run: |
           set -Eeuo pipefail
-          git restore-mtime static
+          bound=$(git log -1 --format=%ct)
+          newest=$(find static -type f -printf '%T@\n' | sort -n | tail -1 | cut -d. -f1)
+          echo "static/ newest mtime $newest, HEAD committed $bound, margin $((bound - newest))s"
+          if [ "$newest" -gt "$bound" ]; then
+            echo "::error::mtime restore did nothing: static/ carries files newer than HEAD's commit, so they still hold their checkout time and --link-dest will link nothing."
+            exit 1
+          fi
 
       # The pin lives in the action, so the deploy and validation cannot install different generators.
       - name: Install Hugo step