diff --git a/pkg/wire/testdata/health_response.json b/pkg/wire/testdata/health_response.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1990a0d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkg/wire/testdata/health_response.json
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+{
+  "uptime_seconds": 3600,
+  "artefact_sha256": "1111111122222222333333334444444455555555666666667777777788888888",
+  "deployed_commit": "0abcdef"
+}
diff --git a/pkg/wire/testdata/health_response_zero.json b/pkg/wire/testdata/health_response_zero.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b93b166
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkg/wire/testdata/health_response_zero.json
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+{
+  "uptime_seconds": 0,
+  "artefact_sha256": "",
+  "deployed_commit": ""
+}
diff --git a/pkg/wire/wire.go b/pkg/wire/wire.go
index 66afbc5..88322d3 100644
--- a/pkg/wire/wire.go
+++ b/pkg/wire/wire.go
@@ -411,6 +411,52 @@ type DeployPublishResponse struct {
 	ExpiresAt time.Time `json:"expires_at"`
 }
 
+// HealthResponse is the body of GET /v1/health: a LIVENESS answer, and
+// deliberately nothing else. The handler reads no datastore and reaches no
+// other service, so a 200 means "this process is up and serving requests"
+// and never "its dependencies are healthy". Those are two different
+// questions, and one endpoint answering both can only ever answer the
+// weaker one — while reporting the stronger.
+//
+// This route is UNAUTHENTICATED, because a liveness check that needs a
+// credential cannot be used by the thing that starts the process, which is
+// the first caller that needs it. It carries nothing a stranger could not
+// already infer from the service answering at all.
+//
+// No client behaviour depends on this type, and the CLI never calls this
+// route. It is here because the contract is defined once, in this package,
+// for whoever does call it — a supervisor deciding whether to proceed, or a
+// person establishing that a port which accepts connections is attached to
+// a server that answers them.
+//
+// # Both string fields may be empty, and empty is not an error
+//
+// ArtefactSHA256 is what the running binary computes of ITSELF at startup:
+// its own identity rather than an assertion about it, which is the one form
+// of this fact that cannot disagree with reality. A process that cannot
+// read its own file reports nothing here and still serves — a liveness
+// endpoint that failed on self-inspection would not be a liveness endpoint.
+//
+// DeployedCommit is CONFIGURATION, and the field name says so rather than
+// implying the binary knows. Whatever installed this binary is the only
+// thing that knows which source revision produced it, so the value is
+// exactly as trustworthy as that installation and no more. It is not
+// compiled in: stamping a revision at build time would make the binary's
+// bytes depend on where it came from, and the build that produces it is
+// pinned precisely so its output is reproducible from its inputs alone.
+// Empty means nobody told this process, which is a fact worth reporting
+// and not a reason to refuse.
+//
+// UptimeSeconds is measured from one reading taken at startup. It is a
+// count rather than a timestamp deliberately: at zero it reads as zero,
+// where an unset instant renders as a date in year one that every reader
+// has to decode before dismissing.
+type HealthResponse struct {
+	UptimeSeconds  int    `json:"uptime_seconds"`
+	ArtefactSHA256 string `json:"artefact_sha256"`
+	DeployedCommit string `json:"deployed_commit"`
+}
+
 // DeployStatus is the lifecycle state of a deploy, as recorded in the
 // deploy record's status attribute. It is what the record says the deploy IS —
 // contrast Phase, which is what the build pipeline is DOING. The two
diff --git a/pkg/wire/wire_test.go b/pkg/wire/wire_test.go
index 2280e19..bf65928 100644
--- a/pkg/wire/wire_test.go
+++ b/pkg/wire/wire_test.go
@@ -99,8 +99,11 @@ func goldenCases() []goldenCase {
 		},
 		{
 			// The closed state is the whole point of the endpoint — the
-			// step-zero gate — and the only fixture where the meaningful
-			// values are zero values.
+			// step-zero gate — and the first fixture here whose meaningful
+			// values are zero values. HealthResponseZero below is the
+			// second, and for the same reason: a state the endpoint is
+			// EXPECTED to report needs a fixture of its own, or the only
+			// pinned shape is the populated one.
 			name:    "CapacityResponseClosed",
 			fixture: "capacity_response_closed.json",
 			value: &CapacityResponse{
@@ -110,6 +113,32 @@ func goldenCases() []goldenCase {
 			},
 			newEmpty: func() any { return &CapacityResponse{} },
 		},
+		{
+			// Values are SYNTHETIC on purpose. A fixture's job is to pin
+			// field names, not to record a measurement, and this repository
+			// is world-readable: a real digest and a real revision id here
+			// would publish two facts about a private deployment in a file
+			// that only needed three keys.
+			name:    "HealthResponse",
+			fixture: "health_response.json",
+			value: &HealthResponse{
+				UptimeSeconds:  3600,
+				ArtefactSHA256: "1111111122222222333333334444444455555555666666667777777788888888",
+				DeployedCommit: "0abcdef",
+			},
+			newEmpty: func() any { return &HealthResponse{} },
+		},
+		{
+			// The all-zero state is REACHABLE and not a degenerate case: a
+			// supervisor's first poll arrives before a second of uptime has
+			// accrued, a binary that cannot read its own file reports no
+			// digest, and nothing obliges an installation to declare a
+			// revision. All three are 200s, so all three need pinning.
+			name:     "HealthResponseZero",
+			fixture:  "health_response_zero.json",
+			value:    &HealthResponse{},
+			newEmpty: func() any { return &HealthResponse{} },
+		},
 		{
 			name:    "WaitlistRequest",
 			fixture: "waitlist_request.json",