The inline _process_pdf path does not emit document_escalation_suppressed_total; the "what-if OCR" counter is instrumented only on the per-tier external path (evaluate_escalation / _parse_pdf_tier). Comment the inline OCR gate so a reader doesn't mistake the omission for a bug. Deferred the assert_never nit (typing .assert_never is 3.11+; Literal+frozen already guard construction) and the pre-existing minimum-ValueError pass (only "ocr"/None are ever passed). Deck #324. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>