diff --git a/release.sh b/release.sh
index 6dcdb6f..f85d68c 100755
--- a/release.sh
+++ b/release.sh
@@ -38,6 +38,17 @@ need_token() { : "${CLOUDRON_TOKEN:?export CLOUDRON_TOKEN first (set -a; . ~/.he
 cr() { cloudron --server "$SERVER" --token "$CLOUDRON_TOKEN" "$@"; }
 manifest_tag() { python3 -c "import json;print(json.load(open('$MANIFEST'))['dockerImage'].rsplit(':',1)[-1])"; }
 
+# curl with retries: right after a deploy the container is mid-swap and a fetch
+# can return empty — that false-negatives the served-HTML checks.
+http_body() {
+  local url=$1 try out=""
+  for try in 1 2 3; do
+    out=$(curl -sf -m 20 "$url" 2>/dev/null) && { printf '%s' "$out"; return 0; }
+    sleep 3
+  done
+  return 1
+}
+
 cmd_build() {
   # Builds are REMOTE: the CLI uploads the build context and the registry app's
   # BuildKit does the work (no docker on the caller). What is required is a
@@ -122,10 +133,12 @@ cmd_verify() {
   [ "$css_repo" = "$css_live" ] && ok "container custom.css == repo (no stale build cache)" \
     || bad "container custom.css $css_live != repo $css_repo (stale COPY layer — rebuild --no-cache)"
 
-  local html; html=$(curl -s "https://chat.inference.coop/login")
+  local html; html=$(http_body "https://chat.inference.coop/login")
   grep -qE 'assets/custom\.css' <<<"$html" && ok "served HTML links custom.css" || bad "served HTML missing custom.css link"
   grep -qE 'assets/custom2\.js' <<<"$html" && ok "served HTML links custom2.js" || bad "served HTML missing custom2.js link"
-  curl -s "https://chat.inference.coop/" | grep -qE 'x-coop-build' && ok "x-coop-build marker present" \
+  # NOTE: right after `deploy` the container is mid-swap; a curl can come back
+  # empty and false-negative. The retry in http_body exists for that (seen 2026-10-26).
+  http_body "https://chat.inference.coop/" | grep -qE 'x-coop-build' && ok "x-coop-build marker present" \
     || bad "no x-coop-build marker (stale service-worker clients will not self-heal)"
 
   # The scheduler task must point at a file that exists in the RUNNING image.