diff --git a/docs/manual-checks.md b/docs/manual-checks.md
index ea206ea..79da807 100644
--- a/docs/manual-checks.md
+++ b/docs/manual-checks.md
@@ -2423,7 +2423,9 @@ script warns rather than failing when that is legitimate, which is the first rel
 ### 16.7 The update arrives, and the restart lands in it · **the whole point of the work**
 
 With v0.1.0 installed and running, a vault unlocked, a host change made, and **a terminal open**, publish
-v0.1.1 (`-Upload`). Then press CHECK NOW on Settings → General rather than waiting six hours.
+v0.1.1 (`-Upload`). Then press CHECK NOW on Settings → General rather than waiting six hours. Closing and
+reopening the application does the same thing without the button: the first pass of the loop runs at launch,
+so a client started after a release finds it without anybody asking.
 
 **Pass:** the progress bar moves, the banner appears above the status bar, and — the part to actually watch
 — the terminal **reflows cleanly rather than being sliced**, with the remote seeing the smaller row count.
diff --git a/src/DodoSSH.Client.Shell/ViewModels/UpdateViewModel.cs b/src/DodoSSH.Client.Shell/ViewModels/UpdateViewModel.cs
index 880924f..6df44ae 100644
--- a/src/DodoSSH.Client.Shell/ViewModels/UpdateViewModel.cs
+++ b/src/DodoSSH.Client.Shell/ViewModels/UpdateViewModel.cs
@@ -74,16 +74,6 @@ internal sealed partial class UpdateViewModel : ObservableObject, IAsyncDisposab
     /// </remarks>
     private static readonly TimeSpan CheckInterval = TimeSpan.FromHours(6);
 
-    /// <summary>How long to wait before the first pass.</summary>
-    /// <remarks>
-    /// A delay, where <c>VaultViewModel</c>'s sync loop runs a pass immediately. The difference is what the
-    /// user is waiting for: a vault edited on another machine should be current by the time they have
-    /// finished reading the list, whereas nothing anybody does in their first two minutes depends on an
-    /// update. Launch is already contending for the network and the CPU with a schema migration, a resumed
-    /// sign-in and a first sync, at the one moment somebody is watching the window.
-    /// </remarks>
-    private static readonly TimeSpan FirstCheckDelay = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(2);
-
     private readonly IUpdateChannel updates;
     private readonly ClientSettingsStore settings;
     private readonly TimeProvider clock;
@@ -242,16 +232,40 @@ internal sealed partial class UpdateViewModel : ObservableObject, IAsyncDisposab
         loop = RunCheckLoopAsync(lifetime.Token);
     }
 
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <para>
+    /// <b>The first pass runs at launch, with no delay in front of it.</b> It used to wait two minutes, on
+    /// the argument that nothing anybody does in their first two minutes depends on an update and launch is
+    /// already contending for the network with a schema migration, a resumed sign-in and a first sync. What
+    /// that argument leaves out is the run that is over before the two minutes are: a client opened to reach
+    /// one host and closed again never checks at all, and a machine used that way is exactly the one ADR
+    /// 0011 warns about — quietly a year behind, with the mechanism to fix it switched on and never reached.
+    /// Every start now asks.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// <b>The yield is what keeps that off the launch path.</b> <see cref="Start"/> is called from
+    /// <c>MainWindowViewModel.StartAsync</c> before the migration, so running the pass inline would put
+    /// whatever the channel does before its own first await — Velopack reads the install layout from disk —
+    /// between the user and their window. Yielding hands the rest of the launch back and lets the check run
+    /// in a later turn, which is the same moment in every sense that matters and none of the cost.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
     private async Task RunCheckLoopAsync(CancellationToken cancellationToken)
     {
         try
         {
-            await Task.Delay(FirstCheckDelay, clock, cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(true);
+            await Task.Yield();
 
             using var timer = new PeriodicTimer(CheckInterval, clock);
 
             do
             {
+                // Task.Yield takes no token, unlike the delay it replaced, so a shutdown that lands while
+                // the loop is waiting to be handed back the thread has to be observed here rather than
+                // only at the next tick. Otherwise an application closed during launch spends its last
+                // moment asking a release channel about a build it is not going to run.
+                cancellationToken.ThrowIfCancellationRequested();
+
                 await CheckOnceAsync(cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(true);
             }
             while (await timer.WaitForNextTickAsync(cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(true));
diff --git a/tests/DodoSSH.Client.App.Tests/UpdateFlowTests.cs b/tests/DodoSSH.Client.App.Tests/UpdateFlowTests.cs
index d47bb73..cee898d 100644
--- a/tests/DodoSSH.Client.App.Tests/UpdateFlowTests.cs
+++ b/tests/DodoSSH.Client.App.Tests/UpdateFlowTests.cs
@@ -403,6 +403,46 @@ public sealed class UpdateFlowTests : IDisposable
         channel.Checks.ShouldBe(1);
     }
 
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <para>
+    /// The loop rather than <c>CheckOnceAsync</c>, which is the one thing the rest of this file avoids
+    /// driving — and here it is the whole point, because the claim is about when the first pass happens
+    /// rather than about what it does. The first pass used to wait two minutes, which meant a client opened
+    /// to reach one host and closed again never asked at all.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// It waits on the pass and not on a clock, so there is nothing here to be flaky about: a regression
+    /// that puts a delay back in front of the loop does not fail on a margin, it spins until the suite's own
+    /// cancellation ends it.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
+    [Fact]
+    public async Task TheFirstPassRunsAtStart_RatherThanOnADelay()
+    {
+        channel.Available = new AvailableUpdate("1.3.0");
+
+        var updates = Build();
+        await using var _ = updates.ConfigureAwait(false);
+
+        updates.Start();
+
+        while (updates.State is not UpdateState.Ready)
+        {
+            Token.ThrowIfCancellationRequested();
+
+            await Task.Yield();
+        }
+
+        channel.Checks.ShouldBe(1);
+        updates.ReadyVersion.ShouldBe("1.3.0");
+    }
+
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// Started and disposed with nothing in between, which since the first pass stopped waiting two minutes
+    /// is a race rather than a formality: the loop may be anywhere between its yield and a finished check
+    /// when the cancellation lands. What is asserted is what matters either way — that disposing returns,
+    /// rather than waiting on a pass that will never be allowed to finish.
+    /// </remarks>
     [Fact]
     public async Task DisposingStopsTheLoop()
     {