diff --git a/.github/workflows/acceptance.yml b/.github/workflows/acceptance.yml
index 7779fb04..54bcd7ad 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/acceptance.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/acceptance.yml
@@ -6,6 +6,28 @@ name: Acceptance Tests
 on:
   workflow_call:
 
+# Serialise every acceptance run repo-wide.
+#
+# All callers -- pull requests, merges to main, manual dispatch, and the release
+# gate -- exercise the SAME three Hookdeck projects using the same three API
+# keys. The API allows 240 requests/minute and a full slice makes thousands of
+# calls, so two runs overlapping exhaust the limit and both degrade.
+#
+# The failure is nasty because it does not look like rate limiting. It surfaces
+# as ordinary assertion failures in whichever slice lost the race -- a config
+# that came back empty, a filter that returned nothing -- sending whoever reads
+# it hunting for a regression that does not exist. It has happened twice: once
+# as four jobs timing out with zero assertion failures, and once as a single
+# named test failing while a release ran concurrently.
+#
+# cancel-in-progress is deliberately false. Cancelling would be faster, but the
+# release workflow calls this as its publish gate, and killing that run to make
+# room for a pull request is the wrong trade. Queueing costs wall-clock and
+# nothing else.
+concurrency:
+  group: acceptance-suite
+  cancel-in-progress: false
+
 jobs:
   acceptance:
     strategy:
diff --git a/.github/workflows/test-acceptance.yml b/.github/workflows/test-acceptance.yml
index 2866448c..41ffda0f 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/test-acceptance.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/test-acceptance.yml
@@ -5,8 +5,65 @@ on:
     branches:
       - next
       - main
+    # Only run when a change could actually affect what the suite tests. See #240.
+    #
+    # This is an allowlist, not a paths-ignore denylist, and deliberately so: a
+    # new top-level directory nobody thought about simply does not trigger the
+    # suite, and the omission is visible (the run is missing) rather than
+    # silently burning three API-key-backed slots on every docs PR. A denylist
+    # fails the other way -- it runs everything until someone remembers to add
+    # an exclusion.
+    #
+    # Skipping is safe here because `unit-test` (in test.yml, which has no path
+    # filters) is the only required status check on main's ruleset, so a PR that
+    # skips acceptance is not left permanently pending.
+    paths:
+      # The binary under test: acceptance helpers run `go build -o <tmp> .` and
+      # `go run main.go`, so the entrypoint, every package and the module graph
+      # are what that build resolves.
+      - "main.go"
+      - "go.mod"
+      - "go.sum"
+      - "pkg/**"
+      # The tests and their helpers. test/ holds only test/acceptance.
+      - "test/**"
+      # The reference generator gates on `--help` text, so a change here can
+      # move output the tests assert on.
+      - "tools/**"
+      # A workflow change can break the run itself, and the acceptance run is a
+      # two-file chain (test-acceptance.yml -> acceptance.yml). Matching the
+      # whole directory means adding another reusable workflow to that chain
+      # does not require remembering to extend this list.
+      - ".github/workflows/**"
+  # Run on merge to main so the merged result is tested, not just each PR
+  # branch in isolation -- the same reasoning test.yml already applies to the
+  # unit and build jobs. A PR based on stale main can merge into a combination
+  # no PR run exercised, and a merge commit is strictly a commit nothing ran
+  # acceptance against.
+  #
+  # This closes a real gap: merging a PR into another PR's head branch fires no
+  # pull_request event, so a release branch can reach main carrying changes its
+  # last acceptance run never saw.
+  #
+  # Same paths filter as above, so a docs merge does not spend a full suite run.
+  push:
+    branches:
+      - main
+    paths:
+      - "main.go"
+      - "go.mod"
+      - "go.sum"
+      - "pkg/**"
+      - "test/**"
+      - "tools/**"
+      - ".github/workflows/**"
+
   # Allow running the acceptance suite against any branch by hand.
   #
+  # workflow_dispatch takes no paths filter, by design: it is the escape hatch
+  # for exactly the case the filter above creates, so it must fire regardless of
+  # what changed.
+  #
   # The pull_request trigger above does not fire when a PR's head branch is
   # updated by merging another PR into it, so a stacked release branch can end
   # up with no acceptance run at all. workflow_dispatch is the only way to