diff --git a/.story_kit/work/4_merge/254_story_add_refactor_work_item_type.md b/.story_kit/work/4_merge/254_story_add_refactor_work_item_type.md
index 2291b56..7ea9f66 100644
--- a/.story_kit/work/4_merge/254_story_add_refactor_work_item_type.md
+++ b/.story_kit/work/4_merge/254_story_add_refactor_work_item_type.md
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 ---
 name: "Add refactor work item type"
+merge_failure: "merge_agent_work tool returned empty output on two attempts. The merge-queue branch (merge-queue/254_story_add_refactor_work_item_type) was created with squash merge commit 27d24b2, and the merge workspace worktree exists at .story_kit/merge_workspace, but the pipeline never completed (no success/failure logged after MERGE-DEBUG calls). The stale merge workspace worktree may be blocking completion. Possibly related to bug 250 (merge pipeline cherry-pick fails with bad revision on merge-queue branch). Human intervention needed to: 1) clean up the merge-queue worktree and branch, 2) investigate why the merge pipeline hangs after creating the squash merge commit, 3) retry the merge."
 ---
 
 # Story 254: Add refactor work item type