diff --git a/.story_kit/work/4_merge/279_story_auto_assign_should_respect_agent_stage_when_front_matter_specifies_agent.md b/.story_kit/work/4_merge/279_story_auto_assign_should_respect_agent_stage_when_front_matter_specifies_agent.md
index 7107d26..e85eb7f 100644
--- a/.story_kit/work/4_merge/279_story_auto_assign_should_respect_agent_stage_when_front_matter_specifies_agent.md
+++ b/.story_kit/work/4_merge/279_story_auto_assign_should_respect_agent_stage_when_front_matter_specifies_agent.md
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 ---
 name: "Auto-assign should respect agent stage when front matter specifies agent"
+merge_failure: "Squash-merge resulted in an empty diff — the feature branch has no code changes beyond master. The coder agent appears to have not committed any implementation work to the feature branch."
 ---
 
 # Story 279: Auto-assign should respect agent stage when front matter specifies agent