diff --git a/.github/dependabot.yml b/.github/dependabot.yml
index 12a1bc90..d2242d41 100644
--- a/.github/dependabot.yml
+++ b/.github/dependabot.yml
@@ -18,11 +18,30 @@ updates:
       update-types: ["version-update:semver-patch"]
 
 - package-ecosystem: "github-actions"
-  directory: "/"
+  # "/" covers .github/workflows (both the hand-written workflows and the
+  # anvil-generated anvil-*.yml ones). The second directory covers
+  # cargo-anvil's templates, which are the source of truth for everything
+  # anvil emits -- including the composite actions under .github/actions,
+  # which Dependabot cannot see otherwise: for directory "/" it only reads
+  # an action.yml at the repository root, never .github/actions/*/action.yml.
+  #
+  # A generated workflow and its template must move together, or cargo-anvil
+  # sees the generated file as hand-edited and stops updating it (see
+  # crates/cargo-anvil/docs/design/updates.md section 5). group-by makes
+  # Dependabot raise one pull request per action spanning both directories.
+  # The anvil-regen workflow then reconciles the emitted tree and .anvil.lock
+  # on that branch.
+  directories:
+    - "/"
+    - "/crates/cargo-anvil/templates/github"
   schedule:
     interval: "monthly"
   commit-message:
     prefix: "chore: "
+  groups:
+    actions:
+      patterns: ["*"]
+      group-by: dependency-name
   # Wait 7 days after a release before proposing it, so the community has a
   # window to detect and report a compromised action release.
   cooldown:
diff --git a/.github/workflows/anvil-regen.yml b/.github/workflows/anvil-regen.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..d84ec38e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/anvil-regen.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,241 @@
+# Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation.
+# Licensed under the MIT License.
+#
+# Reconciles cargo-anvil's emitted tree on Dependabot branches.
+#
+# Dependabot keeps doing what it is good at -- discovering action releases,
+# honouring the cooldown, writing the changelog -- but it cannot run a binary,
+# so it can neither regenerate the files anvil owns nor refresh the checksums
+# in .anvil.lock. A Dependabot pull request that touches an anvil artifact is
+# therefore always incomplete, and merging it as-is is actively harmful: anvil
+# compares disk, lock and template checksums, so an edit it did not make marks
+# the file as repository-customized and it stops updating that file (see
+# crates/cargo-anvil/docs/design/updates.md section 5).
+#
+# This workflow closes that gap. For every open Dependabot pull request that
+# touches an anvil artifact it restores the emitted files to their base-branch
+# state, re-runs anvil so the bump flows from the template through the
+# generator, refreshes the insta snapshots, and pushes the result back onto the
+# Dependabot branch.
+#
+# Why a schedule rather than a trigger on the pull request itself: workflows
+# initiated by Dependabot get a read-only GITHUB_TOKEN and no access to Actions
+# secrets, and that also holds for pull_request_target when the base ref was
+# created by Dependabot. A scheduled run is not initiated by Dependabot, so it
+# gets a normal token and can read secrets.
+#
+# ANVIL_REGEN_TOKEN is required and must NOT be the default GITHUB_TOKEN:
+# pushes made with GITHUB_TOKEN deliberately do not start new workflow runs, so
+# the pull request would keep the check results of the pre-regeneration commit
+# and could never go green. Use a GitHub App installation token or a
+# fine-grained PAT with "Contents: read and write" on this repository.
+name: anvil-regen
+
+on:
+  schedule:
+    # Dependabot's own schedule is monthly, but a pull request that opens just
+    # after a run would otherwise sit broken until the next one.
+    - cron: '17 */3 * * *'
+  workflow_dispatch:
+    inputs:
+      pr:
+        description: Reconcile only this pull request number.
+        required: false
+        type: string
+
+permissions:
+  contents: read
+  pull-requests: read
+
+defaults:
+  run:
+    shell: pwsh
+
+concurrency:
+  group: anvil-regen
+  cancel-in-progress: false
+
+jobs:
+  discover:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    outputs:
+      prs: ${{ steps.find.outputs.prs }}
+    steps:
+      - uses: actions/checkout@3d3c42e5aac5ba805825da76410c181273ba90b1 # v7.0.1
+
+      - name: Find Dependabot pull requests touching anvil artifacts
+        id: find
+        env:
+          GH_TOKEN: ${{ github.token }}
+          ONLY_PR: ${{ inputs.pr }}
+        run: |
+          $ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
+          $PSNativeCommandUseErrorActionPreference = $true
+
+          # Anvil owns every path recorded as a [[file]] entry in the lock,
+          # plus the templates those files are rendered from. Region entries
+          # ([[region]], keyed by "host") are deliberately excluded: their
+          # hosts are co-owned files whose non-region content belongs to the
+          # repository.
+          $owned = @(
+            Select-String -Path '.anvil.lock' -Pattern '^path = "(.*)"$' |
+              ForEach-Object { $_.Matches[0].Groups[1].Value }
+          )
+          $owned += 'crates/cargo-anvil/templates/'
+
+          if ($env:ONLY_PR) {
+            $numbers = @($env:ONLY_PR)
+          } else {
+            $numbers = @(
+              gh pr list --state open --author 'app/dependabot' --limit 100 --json number --jq '.[].number'
+            )
+          }
+
+          $selected = @()
+          foreach ($pr in $numbers) {
+            $changed = @(gh pr view $pr --json files --jq '.files[].path')
+            $touches = $changed | Where-Object {
+              $file = $_
+              $owned | Where-Object { $file -eq $_ -or $file.StartsWith($_) }
+            }
+            if ($touches) {
+              $selected += $pr
+            }
+          }
+
+          if ($selected.Count -eq 0) {
+            Write-Host 'No Dependabot pull requests touch anvil artifacts.'
+            Add-Content -Path $env:GITHUB_OUTPUT -Value 'prs=[]'
+          } else {
+            Write-Host "Selected pull requests: $($selected -join ', ')"
+            # -InputObject rather than the pipeline: piping a single-element
+            # array unrolls it and would emit a bare string, which fromJSON
+            # cannot expand into a matrix.
+            $json = ConvertTo-Json -InputObject @($selected) -Compress
+            Add-Content -Path $env:GITHUB_OUTPUT -Value "prs=$json"
+          }
+
+  reconcile:
+    needs: [discover]
+    if: needs.discover.outputs.prs != '' && needs.discover.outputs.prs != '[]'
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    strategy:
+      fail-fast: false
+      matrix:
+        pr: ${{ fromJSON(needs.discover.outputs.prs) }}
+    env:
+      # Surfaced as env vars because the secrets context is not available in a
+      # step-level if:, and because nearly every step below needs the token.
+      GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.ANVIL_REGEN_TOKEN }}
+      PR: ${{ matrix.pr }}
+    steps:
+      - name: Require the push token
+        if: ${{ env.GH_TOKEN == '' }}
+        run: |
+          Write-Host '::error::ANVIL_REGEN_TOKEN is not configured. Without it the regeneration commit cannot start a new check run and the pull request can never go green. See the header of this file.'
+          exit 1
+
+      - uses: actions/checkout@3d3c42e5aac5ba805825da76410c181273ba90b1 # v7.0.1
+        with:
+          # Full history so the base branch is available to restore from, and
+          # the elevated token so the later push starts check runs.
+          fetch-depth: 0
+          lfs: true
+          token: ${{ secrets.ANVIL_REGEN_TOKEN }}
+
+      - name: Check out the Dependabot branch
+        run: |
+          $ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
+          $PSNativeCommandUseErrorActionPreference = $true
+
+          gh pr checkout $env:PR
+          git config user.name 'github-actions[bot]'
+          git config user.email '41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com'
+
+      - name: Restore anvil-owned files to their base-branch state
+        run: |
+          $ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
+          $PSNativeCommandUseErrorActionPreference = $true
+
+          $base = gh pr view $env:PR --json baseRefName --jq '.baseRefName'
+          git fetch --no-tags origin $base
+
+          # Anvil's decision table keys each artifact on disk-vs-lock and
+          # template-vs-lock, never disk-vs-template. Dependabot's edit to a
+          # generated file therefore reads as "the repository customized this"
+          # and earns a .anvil-proposed sibling instead of an overwrite -- even
+          # when its content is byte-identical to what anvil would render.
+          # Reverting the emitted files first puts disk back in step with the
+          # lock, so the template bump takes the plain overwrite path.
+          $owned = @(
+            Select-String -Path '.anvil.lock' -Pattern '^path = "(.*)"$' |
+              ForEach-Object { $_.Matches[0].Groups[1].Value }
+          )
+          if ($owned.Count -gt 0) {
+            git checkout "origin/$base" -- $owned
+          }
+          git checkout "origin/$base" -- .anvil.lock
+
+      - name: Regenerate the anvil tree
+        run: cargo run --locked -p cargo-anvil -- anvil
+
+      - name: Refresh snapshots
+        env:
+          INSTA_UPDATE: always
+        run: cargo test --locked -p cargo-anvil --test snapshots
+
+      - name: Verify the tree is now consistent
+        run: |
+          $ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
+          $PSNativeCommandUseErrorActionPreference = $true
+
+          # A proposal means anvil declined to take ownership of a file, so the
+          # bump did not actually land. Catch it explicitly: the dry-run below
+          # cannot, because writing a proposal also advances the lock, leaving
+          # the next run a clean no-op.
+          $proposals = @(
+            Get-ChildItem -Recurse -File -Force -Filter '*.anvil-proposed' |
+              Where-Object { $_.FullName -notmatch '[\\/]target[\\/]' }
+          )
+          if ($proposals.Count -gt 0) {
+            Write-Host "::error::anvil wrote proposals instead of updating its own files; reconcile pull request $env:PR by hand."
+            $proposals | ForEach-Object { Write-Host $_.FullName }
+            exit 1
+          }
+
+          cargo build --locked -p cargo-anvil
+          $env:PATH = "$PWD/target/debug" + [IO.Path]::PathSeparator + $env:PATH
+          try {
+            cargo anvil --dry-run
+          } catch {
+            Write-Host "::error::anvil still reports pending changes after regeneration; reconcile pull request $env:PR by hand."
+            exit 1
+          }
+
+      - name: Push the regenerated tree
+        run: |
+          $ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
+          $PSNativeCommandUseErrorActionPreference = $true
+
+          # git checkout <ref> -- <paths> stages what it restores, so the
+          # comparison has to be against HEAD rather than against the index.
+          git add --all
+          $changed = @(git diff --cached --name-only)
+          if ($changed.Count -eq 0) {
+            Write-Host "Nothing to reconcile on pull request $env:PR."
+            exit 0
+          }
+
+          # Guardrail: this job runs unattended against a branch nobody has
+          # reviewed, so it may only ever move anvil's own artifacts. Anything
+          # else means an assumption above no longer holds.
+          $allowed = '^(\.anvil\.lock|\.anvil/|\.github/workflows/anvil-|\.github/actions/anvil-|justfiles/anvil/|crates/cargo-anvil/tests/snapshots/)'
+          $unexpected = @($changed | Where-Object { $_ -notmatch $allowed })
+          if ($unexpected.Count -gt 0) {
+            Write-Host "::error::Regeneration touched files outside anvil's artifacts; refusing to push."
+            $unexpected | ForEach-Object { Write-Host $_ }
+            exit 1
+          }
+
+          git commit --message 'chore: regenerate anvil artifacts'
+          git push
diff --git a/.github/workflows/regenerate-check.yml b/.github/workflows/regenerate-check.yml
index f1e21836..d9ea8710 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/regenerate-check.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/regenerate-check.yml
@@ -21,6 +21,15 @@ on:
     paths:
       - "crates/cargo-anvil/**"
       - ".github/workflows/regenerate-check.yml"
+      # Anvil-owned artifacts. Editing one of these by hand (or via a
+      # Dependabot action bump) makes anvil treat the file as
+      # repository-customized and stop updating it, so the drift has to be
+      # visible on the pull request rather than only in the merge queue.
+      - ".github/workflows/anvil-*.yml"
+      - ".github/actions/anvil-*/**"
+      - "justfiles/anvil/**"
+      - ".anvil/**"
+      - ".anvil.lock"
   merge_group: {}
   workflow_dispatch: {}