Run records from 2026-10-24 and 2026-10-25 show two runs drawing the same research programme within hours and doing the same milestone. One spent about two hours training before finding the sibling had merged. The pull-request claim check only helps until that PR merges.
research/_shared/pick_track.py now prints the newest three commits on origin/main that touch the drawn programme's directory. A run that sees its milestone already there picks the next one. Fetch origin/main first; the tool reads the local ref.