diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci-docs-only.yml b/.github/workflows/ci-docs-only.yml
index 6cb41278f..01e0db124 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci-docs-only.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ci-docs-only.yml
@@ -12,18 +12,24 @@
 # See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 # limitations under the License.
 
-# Companion to ci.yml for the required "Test and Lint" status check.
+# Companion to ci.yml for required status checks.
 #
-# ci.yml skips docs-only pull requests via paths-ignore, but the branch
-# ruleset requires a check named "Test and Lint" — without this workflow a
-# docs-only PR would wait on that check forever. This workflow triggers on
-# exactly the paths ci.yml ignores and reports an instant success under the
-# same job name. Mixed PRs trigger both workflows and the real check still
-# gates: a required check with any failing run blocks the merge.
+# ci.yml skips docs-only pull requests via paths-ignore, but the branch ruleset
+# requires a check named "Test and Lint" — without this workflow a docs-only PR
+# would wait on it forever. This workflow triggers on exactly the paths ci.yml
+# ignores and reports success under the same job name. Mixed PRs trigger both
+# workflows and the real check still gates: a required check with any failing
+# run blocks the merge.
 # https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/configuring-branches-and-merges-in-your-repository/defining-the-mergeability-of-pull-requests/troubleshooting-required-status-checks#handling-skipped-but-required-checks
 #
+# "Quick Checks" is mirrored here ahead of the ruleset change that will make it
+# required too (rustfs/backlog#1599). Until that change lands this job is
+# inert; mirroring it first is what lets the ruleset change happen without
+# stranding docs-only PRs on a check nobody reports.
+#
 # Keep the paths list below in sync with the pull_request paths-ignore list
-# in ci.yml.
+# in ci.yml, and keep the quick-checks steps below byte-identical to the
+# quick-checks job in ci.yml.
 
 name: Continuous Integration (docs only)
 
@@ -52,9 +58,63 @@ permissions:
   contents: read
 
 jobs:
+  # Deliberately NOT a bare `echo`. Once "Quick Checks" becomes a required
+  # check, ci.yml gates every expensive job behind it, so a mixed PR reports
+  # two check runs with this name: the real one (45-51s) and this companion.
+  # GitHub has no written contract for how it picks between same-named
+  # required check runs ("latest wins" vs "any failure blocks"), so instead of
+  # relying on ordering we make both runs execute the same commands against
+  # the same merge ref — their conclusions are then necessarily identical and
+  # the choice does not matter. Keep these steps byte-identical to the
+  # quick-checks job in ci.yml (a guard script that asserts this, and the paths
+  # sync below, is tracked in rustfs/backlog#1603).
+  #
+  # For a genuinely docs-only PR this adds no strictness (no code changed, so
+  # fmt and the guards always pass) and costs ~50s of ubuntu-latest.
+  quick-checks:
+    name: Quick Checks
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    timeout-minutes: 10
+    steps:
+      - name: Checkout repository
+        uses: actions/checkout@9c091bb21b7c1c1d1991bb908d89e4e9dddfe3e0 # v7
+
+      - name: Install ripgrep
+        run: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y ripgrep
+
+      - name: Install Rust toolchain
+        uses: dtolnay/rust-toolchain@29eef336d9b2848a0b548edc03f92a220660cdb8 # stable
+        with:
+          components: rustfmt
+
+      - name: Check code formatting
+        run: cargo fmt --all --check
+
+      - name: Check unsafe code allowances
+        run: ./scripts/check_unsafe_code_allowances.sh
+
+      - name: Check layered dependencies
+        run: ./scripts/check_layer_dependencies.sh
+
+      - name: Check architecture migration rules
+        run: ./scripts/check_architecture_migration_rules.sh
+
+      - name: Check tokio io-uring feature guard
+        run: ./scripts/check_no_tokio_io_uring.sh
+
+      - name: Check extension schema boundaries
+        run: ./scripts/check_extension_schema_boundaries.sh
+
+      - name: Check body-cache whitelist guard
+        run: ./scripts/check_body_cache_whitelist.sh
+
+      - name: Check no planning docs committed
+        run: ./scripts/check_no_planning_docs.sh
+
   test-and-lint:
     name: Test and Lint
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    timeout-minutes: 10
     steps:
       - name: Checkout repository
         uses: actions/checkout@9c091bb21b7c1c1d1991bb908d89e4e9dddfe3e0 # v7
diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci.yml b/.github/workflows/ci.yml
index 184771d4e..450ef6ac1 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ci.yml
@@ -96,6 +96,10 @@ jobs:
 
   # Fast, compile-free checks that fail early so contributors get feedback in
   # ~1 minute instead of waiting for the full test job.
+  #
+  # These steps are mirrored byte-for-byte in ci-docs-only.yml so that a mixed
+  # PR, which reports two check runs named "Quick Checks", cannot get one red
+  # and one green. Edit both jobs together.
   quick-checks:
     name: Quick Checks
     if: github.event_name != 'pull_request' || github.event.action != 'closed'
@@ -140,13 +144,26 @@ jobs:
   test-and-lint:
     name: Test and Lint
     if: github.event_name != 'pull_request' || github.event.action != 'closed'
+    needs: [ quick-checks ]
     runs-on: sm-standard-4
     timeout-minutes: 90
+    # Both lines are required. Job-level `permissions` replaces the workflow
+    # block rather than merging with it, so declaring only `actions: write`
+    # would drop `contents: read` and break this job's checkout and the
+    # repo-token the setup action hands to setup-protoc.
+    permissions:
+      contents: read
+      actions: write
     env:
       FORCE_JAVASCRIPT_ACTIONS_TO_NODE24: "true"
     steps:
       - name: Checkout repository
         uses: actions/checkout@9c091bb21b7c1c1d1991bb908d89e4e9dddfe3e0 # v7
+        with:
+          # This job's token can cancel runs and delete Actions caches. Checkout
+          # otherwise writes it into .git/config, where a PR's own build.rs or
+          # proc-macro could read it back out.
+          persist-credentials: false
 
       - name: Setup Rust environment
         uses: ./.github/actions/setup
@@ -277,6 +294,48 @@ jobs:
       - name: Run rebalance/decommission migration proofs
         run: ./scripts/check_migration_gate_count.sh
 
+      # Early stop. Once this job has failed the PR cannot merge, so the sibling
+      # lanes are burning runners on a result nobody can act on: on run
+      # 30674613104 three lanes had already failed while Test and Lint and the
+      # rio-v2 variant kept going past 70 minutes.
+      #
+      # Only this job may cancel. The lanes that are NOT required checks
+      # (protocols, ILM, e2e, s3-tests) must never hold that power: a flake in
+      # one of them would turn the required "Test and Lint" into `cancelled`,
+      # which blocks the merge. Today a maintainer can merge with sftp red, and
+      # that has to stay true.
+      #
+      # These steps run last so the `if: always()` artifact upload above still
+      # captures logs and diagnostics before the run goes away.
+      - name: Annotate early-stop reason
+        if: failure() && github.event_name == 'pull_request'
+        run: |
+          echo "## CI early-stop" >> "$GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY"
+          echo "Job \`${GITHUB_JOB}\` (Test and Lint) failed; cancelling run ${GITHUB_RUN_ID} to free runners." >> "$GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY"
+          echo "Sibling jobs showing **cancelled** were stopped by this job, not by their own failure." >> "$GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY"
+
+      # curl rather than `gh`: every existing `gh` call in this repo runs on
+      # ubuntu-latest, and the sm-standard-* images are custom and trimmed (they
+      # ship no C toolchain, see the e2e job below), so `gh` is not known to
+      # exist here.
+      #
+      # Fork PRs are excluded explicitly instead of relying on the error path:
+      # their GITHUB_TOKEN is forced read-only and job-level permissions cannot
+      # raise it, so the call would always 403. Skipping keeps their logs clean.
+      - name: Cancel run on failure (same-repo PR only)
+        if: >-
+          failure() && github.event_name == 'pull_request'
+          && github.event.pull_request.head.repo.full_name == github.repository
+        continue-on-error: true
+        env:
+          GH_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
+        run: |
+          curl -fsS -X POST \
+            -H "Authorization: Bearer ${GH_TOKEN}" \
+            -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" \
+            -H "X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2022-11-28" \
+            "${GITHUB_API_URL}/repos/${GITHUB_REPOSITORY}/actions/runs/${GITHUB_RUN_ID}/cancel" || true
+
   # Dedicated serial lane for the ILM / lifecycle integration tests. These tests
   # drive the object layer through process-global singletons (the GLOBAL_ENV
   # ECStore, the global tier-config manager, background-expiry workers) and bind
@@ -290,6 +349,7 @@ jobs:
   test-ilm-integration-serial:
     name: ILM Integration (serial)
     if: github.event_name != 'pull_request' || github.event.action != 'closed'
+    needs: [ quick-checks ]
     runs-on: sm-standard-4
     timeout-minutes: 45
     env:
@@ -327,6 +387,7 @@ jobs:
   test-and-lint-rio-v2:
     name: Test and Lint (rio-v2)
     if: github.event_name != 'pull_request' || github.event.action != 'closed'
+    needs: [ quick-checks ]
     runs-on: sm-standard-4
     timeout-minutes: 60
     env:
@@ -354,10 +415,17 @@ jobs:
   test-and-lint-protocols:
     name: "Test and Lint (${{ matrix.features.name }})"
     if: github.event_name != 'pull_request' || github.event.action != 'closed'
+    needs: [ quick-checks ]
     runs-on: sm-standard-4
     timeout-minutes: 60
     strategy:
-      fail-fast: false
+      # On a PR, one failing protocol leg is enough to know the PR is not ready,
+      # so stop the sibling leg instead of paying another ~40 minutes for it.
+      # Everywhere else (main pushes, the merge queue, the weekly schedule) keep
+      # the full signal: there we want to know whether swift AND sftp are broken,
+      # not just whichever failed first. This is the only part of the early-stop
+      # work that also covers fork PRs, since it needs no token.
+      fail-fast: ${{ github.event_name == 'pull_request' }}
       matrix:
         features:
           - name: swift
@@ -389,6 +457,7 @@ jobs:
   build-rustfs-debug-binary:
     name: Build RustFS Debug Binary
     if: github.event_name != 'pull_request' || github.event.action != 'closed'
+    needs: [ quick-checks ]
     runs-on: sm-standard-4
     timeout-minutes: 30
     env:
@@ -419,6 +488,7 @@ jobs:
   build-rustfs-debug-binary-rio-v2:
     name: Build RustFS Debug Binary (rio-v2)
     if: github.event_name != 'pull_request' || github.event.action != 'closed'
+    needs: [ quick-checks ]
     runs-on: sm-standard-4
     timeout-minutes: 30
     env:
@@ -448,6 +518,14 @@ jobs:
 
   uring-integration:
     name: io_uring Integration (real)
+    # The pull_request trigger includes `closed` purely so the concurrency
+    # group cancels in-flight runs of a closed PR; every other job opts out of
+    # that run with this guard (or is skipped through its `needs` chain). This
+    # job had neither, so each closed/merged PR really ran the whole io_uring
+    # suite (measured 4m17s / 7m19s / 7m31s on runs 30678272341 / 30678117601 /
+    # 30662728539) and kept the cancellation run in progress for minutes.
+    if: github.event_name != 'pull_request' || github.event.action != 'closed'
+    needs: [ quick-checks ]
     # GitHub-hosted ubuntu-latest runs a recent kernel with io_uring and, unlike
     # a container, applies no seccomp filter that would block io_uring_setup — so
     # the probe succeeds and the tests exercise the real UringBackend/FdCache/
@@ -746,7 +824,13 @@ jobs:
   # evaluates ILM within ~2s of the due time, well inside the poll window.
   s3-lifecycle-behavior-tests:
     name: S3 Lifecycle Behavior Tests
-    needs: [ build-rustfs-debug-binary ]
+    # Also gated on e2e-tests, matching s3-implemented-tests: when the e2e smoke
+    # suite is already red this lane cannot tell us anything new, and it holds a
+    # sm-standard-4 for up to 30 minutes doing so. Both lanes only download the
+    # prebuilt debug binary (no cargo build), and s3-implemented-tests — which
+    # already waits on e2e-tests — finishes later anyway, so a green PR's total
+    # wall clock is unchanged.
+    needs: [ build-rustfs-debug-binary, e2e-tests ]
     runs-on: sm-standard-4
     timeout-minutes: 30
     steps: