diff --git a/.github/workflows/release.yml b/.github/workflows/release.yml
index 4e39345..05f94ad 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/release.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/release.yml
@@ -30,9 +30,9 @@ env:
   GIT_CONFIG_VALUE_0: main
 
 # Concurrency is intentionally job-scoped. Superseded read-only jobs cancel
-# independently, including on main. Write-capable release jobs share one FIFO
-# queue so a publication that has started is never cancelled and subsequent
-# publications run one at a time.
+# independently away from main. Jobs on main are never superseded, which lets
+# the terminal status gate reliably treat a cancellation there as a timeout or
+# manual cancellation. Write-capable release jobs share one FIFO queue.
 jobs:
   # === DETECT CHANGES - determines which jobs should run ===
   detect-changes:
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ jobs:
     timeout-minutes: 5
     concurrency:
       group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}-detect-changes
-      cancel-in-progress: true
+      cancel-in-progress: ${{ github.ref != 'refs/heads/main' }}
     if: github.event_name != 'workflow_dispatch'
     outputs:
       any-code-changed: ${{ steps.changes.outputs.any-code-changed }}
@@ -100,7 +100,7 @@ jobs:
     timeout-minutes: 20
     concurrency:
       group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}-lint
-      cancel-in-progress: true
+      cancel-in-progress: ${{ github.ref != 'refs/heads/main' }}
     needs: [detect-changes]
     # !cancelled() lets this job evaluate even though detect-changes is skipped
     # for workflow_dispatch while still propagating workflow cancellation.
@@ -187,7 +187,7 @@ jobs:
     timeout-minutes: 30
     concurrency:
       group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}-test
-      cancel-in-progress: true
+      cancel-in-progress: ${{ github.ref != 'refs/heads/main' }}
     needs: [detect-changes]
     env:
       CODECOV_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.CODECOV_TOKEN }}
@@ -263,7 +263,7 @@ jobs:
     timeout-minutes: 20
     concurrency:
       group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}-build
-      cancel-in-progress: true
+      cancel-in-progress: ${{ github.ref != 'refs/heads/main' }}
     needs: [detect-changes, lint, test]
     # Build change-bearing automatic events and all manually dispatched releases.
     if: |
@@ -336,7 +336,7 @@ jobs:
     timeout-minutes: 10
     concurrency:
       group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}-changelog
-      cancel-in-progress: true
+      cancel-in-progress: ${{ github.ref != 'refs/heads/main' }}
     needs: [detect-changes]
     if: github.event_name == 'pull_request' && needs.detect-changes.outputs.any-code-changed == 'true'
     steps:
@@ -424,7 +424,7 @@ jobs:
     timeout-minutes: 60
     concurrency:
       group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}-docker-build
-      cancel-in-progress: true
+      cancel-in-progress: ${{ github.ref != 'refs/heads/main' }}
     needs: [detect-changes]
     if: github.event_name == 'pull_request' && needs.detect-changes.outputs.any-code-changed == 'true'
     steps:
@@ -691,3 +691,21 @@ jobs:
             --version "${{ steps.version.outputs.new_version }}" \
             --repository "${{ github.repository }}" \
             --repository-root "."
+
+  # A job killed by timeout-minutes concludes "cancelled", not "failure".
+  # Observe every other job so that state cannot silently hide a broken run.
+  pipeline-status:
+    name: Pipeline Status
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    timeout-minutes: 5
+    if: always()
+    needs: [detect-changes, lint, test, build, changelog, docker-build,
+            auto-release, manual-release]
+    steps:
+      - uses: actions/checkout@v6
+
+      - name: Fail the run when a required job was cancelled or failed
+        env:
+          NEEDS_JSON: ${{ toJSON(needs) }}
+          IS_MAIN: ${{ github.ref == 'refs/heads/main' && github.event_name == 'push' }}
+        run: bash scripts/check-pipeline-status.sh
diff --git a/changelog.d/20260809_issue_50_pipeline_timeout_status.md b/changelog.d/20260809_issue_50_pipeline_timeout_status.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cf15541
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog.d/20260809_issue_50_pipeline_timeout_status.md
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+### Fixed
+
+- Added a terminal CI/CD status gate so failed jobs always fail the aggregate
+  check, while cancelled jobs fail pushes to `main` instead of allowing job
+  timeouts to look like benign workflow cancellations.
diff --git a/scripts/check-pipeline-status.sh b/scripts/check-pipeline-status.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..5e8bf84
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/check-pipeline-status.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# Make failures and timeout-shaped cancellations visible in the aggregate run.
+set -euo pipefail
+
+: "${NEEDS_JSON:?NEEDS_JSON is required (pass toJSON(needs))}"
+IS_MAIN="${IS_MAIN:-false}"
+
+select_by_result() {
+  printf '%s' "$NEEDS_JSON" \
+    | jq -r --arg want "$1" \
+        'to_entries | map(select(.value.result == $want) | .key) | join(", ")'
+}
+
+failed="$(select_by_result failure)"
+cancelled="$(select_by_result cancelled)"
+
+echo "Failed jobs:    ${failed:-<none>}"
+echo "Cancelled jobs: ${cancelled:-<none>}"
+
+status=0
+if [ -n "$failed" ]; then
+  echo "::error::Pipeline failed. Failing jobs: ${failed}"
+  status=1
+fi
+
+if [ -n "$cancelled" ]; then
+  if [ "$IS_MAIN" = "true" ]; then
+    echo "::error::Pipeline has cancelled jobs on main: ${cancelled}. A job killed by 'timeout-minutes' is reported as cancelled; check job annotations for an exceeded maximum execution time."
+    status=1
+  else
+    echo "::warning::Cancelled jobs: ${cancelled}. On a non-default ref this is usually a superseded run."
+  fi
+fi
+
+if [ "$status" -eq 0 ]; then
+  echo "All required jobs succeeded or were legitimately skipped."
+fi
+
+exit "$status"
diff --git a/tests/test_workflows.py b/tests/test_workflows.py
index b315f08..3365f2f 100644
--- a/tests/test_workflows.py
+++ b/tests/test_workflows.py
@@ -3,6 +3,8 @@
 from __future__ import annotations
 
 import re
+import shutil
+import subprocess
 from pathlib import Path
 
 ROOT = Path(__file__).resolve().parents[1]
@@ -180,7 +182,7 @@ def test_changelog_check_safely_requires_a_fragment() -> None:
 
 
 def test_release_workflow_separates_check_and_write_concurrency() -> None:
-    """Checks cancel independently while release writes share a FIFO queue."""
+    """Checks supersede off main while release writes share a FIFO queue."""
     workflow = read_workflow("release.yml")
     workflow_header = workflow.split("\njobs:\n", maxsplit=1)[0]
 
@@ -199,7 +201,7 @@ def test_release_workflow_separates_check_and_write_concurrency() -> None:
             "group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}-" f"{job_name}"
         )
         assert expected_group in block
-        assert "cancel-in-progress: true" in block
+        assert "cancel-in-progress: ${{ github.ref != 'refs/heads/main' }}" in block
 
     write_concurrency = "\n".join(
         (
@@ -237,6 +239,7 @@ def test_release_workflow_jobs_have_explicit_timeouts() -> None:
         "docker-build": 60,
         "auto-release": 30,
         "manual-release": 30,
+        "pipeline-status": 5,
     }
 
     for job_name, timeout in expected_timeouts.items():
@@ -244,11 +247,64 @@ def test_release_workflow_jobs_have_explicit_timeouts() -> None:
         assert f"timeout-minutes: {timeout}" in block
 
 
+def test_pipeline_status_gate_covers_every_other_release_job() -> None:
+    """Every release job must feed the terminal timeout/failure gate."""
+    workflow = read_workflow("release.yml")
+    jobs_section = workflow.split("\njobs:\n", maxsplit=1)[1]
+    job_names = re.findall(r"^  ([A-Za-z0-9_-]+):$", jobs_section, re.MULTILINE)
+    gate = workflow_job_block(workflow, "pipeline-status")
+
+    assert "if: always()" in gate
+    assert "run: bash scripts/check-pipeline-status.sh" in gate
+    assert "NEEDS_JSON: ${{ toJSON(needs) }}" in gate
+    assert (
+        "IS_MAIN: ${{ github.ref == 'refs/heads/main' && "
+        "github.event_name == 'push' }}" in gate
+    )
+    for job_name in job_names:
+        if job_name != "pipeline-status":
+            assert re.search(rf"(?:^|[\s,[])({re.escape(job_name)})(?=[\s,\]])", gate)
+
+
+def test_pipeline_status_script_handles_all_job_conclusions() -> None:
+    """The gate fails failures and main cancellations without breaking supersedes."""
+    script = ROOT / "scripts" / "check-pipeline-status.sh"
+    assert script.exists()
+    assert "set -euo pipefail" in script.read_text(encoding="utf-8")
+
+    if shutil.which("jq") is None:
+        return
+
+    cases = (
+        ({"lint": "success", "test": "skipped"}, True, True),
+        ({"lint": "failure"}, False, False),
+        ({"auto-release": "cancelled"}, True, False),
+        ({"test": "cancelled"}, False, True),
+    )
+    for results, is_main, should_pass in cases:
+        needs_json = (
+            "{"
+            + ",".join(
+                f'"{job}":{{"result":"{result}"}}' for job, result in results.items()
+            )
+            + "}"
+        )
+        completed = subprocess.run(
+            ["bash", str(script)],
+            cwd=ROOT,
+            env={"NEEDS_JSON": needs_json, "IS_MAIN": str(is_main).lower()},
+            capture_output=True,
+            text=True,
+            check=False,
+        )
+        assert completed.returncode == (0 if should_pass else 1), completed.stdout
+
+
 def test_release_workflow_action_versions_are_current() -> None:
     """Release workflow actions should use the current major versions."""
     release_workflow = read_workflow("release.yml")
 
-    assert_action_pin_count(release_workflow, "actions/checkout", "v6", 8)
+    assert_action_pin_count(release_workflow, "actions/checkout", "v6", 9)
     assert_action_pin_count(release_workflow, "actions/setup-python", "v6", 7)
     assert_action_pin_count(release_workflow, "actions/upload-artifact", "v7", 1)
     assert_action_pin_count(release_workflow, "actions/download-artifact", "v7", 1)