diff --git a/modules/mesh-delivery-gate/README.md b/modules/mesh-delivery-gate/README.md
index 4f8b9de3..5b208ec6 100644
--- a/modules/mesh-delivery-gate/README.md
+++ b/modules/mesh-delivery-gate/README.md
@@ -20,6 +20,19 @@ of such a delivery asks the controller (`delivery-backups-again`) to take the ba
 delivering; a record from before the controller cleared the failure does not hold it again. A held delivery already
 ends as covered or delivered when a later merge covers it.
 
+## When a refused or rejected merge is said (ADR 0505 §4, §5)
+
+`stalled` is what the controller raises as a condition for the operator. The gate's own list (`show`, `deliveries`)
+names every refusal and rejection at once, and the pull request is told at once; only `stalled` waits:
+
+- a merge refused because its trunk moved, whose check the gate asked again, is stalled only once that check answered and
+  the merge was refused again, or twice the repository's last check time passed (at least the setting
+  `refusal-stall-floor-minutes`, 10). Every other refusal is stalled at once.
+- a delivery that needs its author's new head (its check failed after its Approve: a conflict, a failed check, a rejected
+  group) is stalled only once no new head came for the setting `author-new-head-minutes` (120). Its line says
+  `needs: new-head` and names its author: the branch, and the session a `Pushed-by: <who@node>` line in the pull
+  request's description names.
+
 ## Taking the seat over from today's module
 
 The gate claims the seat `mesh-delivery` and took it over from the module `mesh-delivery`, which the catalogue no longer holds.