diff --git a/realm-policy/realm-policy.gts b/realm-policy/realm-policy.gts
index 611f77dec..4fb9db49d 100644
--- a/realm-policy/realm-policy.gts
+++ b/realm-policy/realm-policy.gts
@@ -127,13 +127,16 @@ export class OperationGrant extends FieldDef {
   @field where = contains(PolicyPredicateField);
   // Whether the grant also admits a caller who isn't signed in. Off, it
   // admits only signed-in callers, so a grant written before anonymous
-  // callers could reach a policy never starts admitting them. Only a grant on
-  // a base operation under its own name (`read`, `update`, …) may set it, not
-  // one on a custom operation or a named query. The realm doesn't evaluate a
-  // `where` that reads `actor()` for such a caller, so a grant whose `where`
-  // does never admits one: an anonymous grant is scoped by what the target
-  // holds. How hard anonymous callers may use the realm, and which addresses
-  // it refuses, are the governed realm's own settings, not the policy's.
+  // callers could reach a policy never starts admitting them. A grant on a
+  // base operation other than `explain` or `validate` may set it, and so may
+  // one on an operation a card declares on such a base. A grant on a named
+  // query may not: setting it there leaves the whole grant out, for
+  // signed-in callers too. Such a caller has no actor, so a grant whose
+  // `where` reads `actor()`, or whose operation does, never admits one,
+  // though it still applies to signed-in callers: an anonymous grant is
+  // scoped by what the target holds. How hard anonymous callers may use the
+  // realm, and which addresses it refuses, are the governed realm's own
+  // settings, not the policy's.
   @field anonymous = contains(BooleanField);
   // For an anonymous grant on a write: the key, exactly as written, in the
   // governed realm's `realm.json` settings, whose value is the user the write
@@ -389,8 +392,9 @@ export class PolicyRule extends FieldDef {
 }
 
 // What each reason an explanation gives means, in the words a policy author
-// reads it in.
-const REASONS: Record<PolicyExplanation['reason'], string> = {
+// reads it in. `reads-actor` is named here as well as through the explanation
+// type, so the map covers it whichever platform version this realm runs on.
+const REASONS: Record<PolicyExplanation['reason'] | 'reads-actor', string> = {
   acl: "The realm's own permissions already allow this, so the policy isn't needed.",
   granted: 'A grant in this policy allows it.',
   'no-grant': "No rule for this card's type grants this operation.",
@@ -408,6 +412,8 @@ const REASONS: Record<PolicyExplanation['reason'], string> = {
   'not-resolved': "This card doesn't have this operation.",
   'actor-required':
     "Someone who isn't signed in is turned away before the policy is checked.",
+  'reads-actor':
+    "This operation depends on who is asking, and someone who isn't signed in can't be identified, so a grant that opens it to them doesn't apply.",
   'policy-unloadable': "The realm's policy couldn't be loaded.",
 };
 
@@ -1400,6 +1406,9 @@ class ExplainPanel extends GlimmerComponent<ExplainPanelSignature> {
           data-test-explain-actor
         />
       </FieldContainer>
+      <p class='hint' data-test-explain-actor-hint>
+        Leave this empty to check what someone who isn't signed in can do.
+      </p>
       {{#if this.isCard}}
         <FieldContainer
           @label='Card (URL)'