diff --git a/nextcloud_mcp_server/observability/metrics.py b/nextcloud_mcp_server/observability/metrics.py
index e7537964..4644ff74 100644
--- a/nextcloud_mcp_server/observability/metrics.py
+++ b/nextcloud_mcp_server/observability/metrics.py
@@ -316,7 +316,7 @@ document_parse_failed_total = Counter(
 document_dead_lettered_total = Counter(
     "astrolabe_document_dead_lettered_total",
     "Documents dead-lettered after a terminal parse failure (no escalation tier)",
-    ["reason"],  # reason: timeout | oom | error
+    ["reason"],  # reason: timeout | oom | error | oversize
 )
 
 # Documents dropped after exhausting in-process indexing retries (the scanner
@@ -806,7 +806,8 @@ def record_document_dead_lettered(reason: str) -> None:
 
     Args:
         reason: ``timeout`` | ``oom`` | ``error`` (the terminal parse failure
-            reason carried from the isolated worker).
+            reason carried from the isolated worker) or ``oversize`` (rejected by
+            the pre-parse size guard, which no tier can ever parse).
     """
     document_dead_lettered_total.labels(reason=reason).inc()
 
diff --git a/nextcloud_mcp_server/vector/placeholder.py b/nextcloud_mcp_server/vector/placeholder.py
index b542083b..bb0e5b7e 100644
--- a/nextcloud_mcp_server/vector/placeholder.py
+++ b/nextcloud_mcp_server/vector/placeholder.py
@@ -402,6 +402,8 @@ async def sweep_orphan_placeholders(
             # in-flight placeholders -- they carry no/foreign instance_id and must
             # survive a Pod restart, so never sweep them as orphans.
             if payload.get("dead_letter") is True:
+                # Tenant-wide and always kept (not Pod-scoped); counted under
+                # ``kept`` only because the sweep's tally has no separate bucket.
                 kept += 1
                 continue
             point_instance = payload.get("instance_id")
diff --git a/nextcloud_mcp_server/vector/processor.py b/nextcloud_mcp_server/vector/processor.py
index 4c3f4076..4b7ac807 100644
--- a/nextcloud_mcp_server/vector/processor.py
+++ b/nextcloud_mcp_server/vector/processor.py
@@ -1615,6 +1615,9 @@ async def _index_document(
     # escalation tier finally parsed it) so it isn't left behind. Only files are
     # ever dead-lettered, and only with a non-empty etag (is_dead_lettered
     # early-returns without one), so skip the extra Qdrant round-trip otherwise.
+    # Cleared before the real-chunk upsert below: if that upsert then fails
+    # transiently, the document is re-queued and re-parses once on the next scan
+    # (an extra parse, never a silent drop) -- the safe ordering.
     if doc_task.doc_type == "file" and doc_task.etag:
         await clear_dead_letter(doc_task.doc_id, doc_task.doc_type)