diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index ae3b2dafe0..c756754763 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ This project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.htm
 - **Seeded typed-hop property projection keeps its fast path through DISTINCT / ORDER BY / SKIP / LIMIT**: those trailing row ops are plain frame operations, so the fast path now delegates them to the canonical chain instead of declining the whole query.
 
 ### Changed
+- **The polars-engine index tests stop fabricating 20 failures on a cuDF-without-`cudf_polars` box** (tests only; zero runtime delta). `graphistry/tests/compute/gfql/index/test_index.py` built its engine list by appending `"polars-gpu"` when **`cudf`** imported — but `polars-gpu` is the `cudf_polars` GPU collect target and raises `ImportError: GFQL engine='polars-gpu' requires the RAPIDS cudf_polars stack` without it. So any environment with cuDF installed and `cudf_polars` absent (a common developer configuration) got 20 failures indistinguishable from product breakage, in a file that IS in the polars lane. CI never caught it because that lane installs neither package, so the parameter did not exist there — a gate can only fabricate failures where it is never exercised. The gate now tests `cudf_polars`. Measured: 20 failed / 116 passed before, 105 passed / 0 failed after, on a box with cuDF 25.10 and no `cudf_polars`.
 - **`rows(table=...)` and rewrite-param regression suites now run on all four engines** (tests only; zero runtime delta — no production line changed). The #1788 and #1790 suites were parametrized over pandas + polars only, so the `table` guards they exist to pin were never exercised on cuDF or polars-gpu at all. Both files were already in `bin/test-polars.sh` (#1805), so their polars params did run; what ran nowhere was `test_rows_table_named_middle.py` outside that one lane — a module-level `pytest.importorskip("polars")` skipped the whole file in `test-gfql-core`, which installs no polars. Both files are now parametrized over pandas / cuDF / polars / polars-gpu from a **fixed** engine list plus a classified availability check; dropping the module-level `importorskip` also makes 5 pandas cases live in `test-gfql-core`. The availability check is deliberately not `available_nonpandas_engines()`, which builds its list by importability so a missing engine vanishes from the report instead of showing as SKIPPED, and it is deliberately not a blanket `except Exception` either: a missing module skips, a recognisable GPU-stack error skips **with its text quoted**, and any other failure propagates — because a skipped GPU parameter reads as evidence of passing. Both traps were hit by trying rather than reasoned about: a probe that ran the shape under test turned a reverted production guard into 20 SKIPS instead of 20 failures, and a blanket probe silently dropped cuDF from an otherwise-green GPU run on a transient `cudaErrorMemoryAllocation`. GPU receipts on dgx GB10 / cuDF 26.02.01 / polars 1.35.2 / `docker run --gpus all`: **45 passed, 3 xfailed, 0 skipped**; mutation-checked by reverting the #1788 and #1790 `table` guards — **24 failures spread evenly over all four engines (6 each)**, so the added parameters are not decorative. Two gaps the new parameters surfaced are pinned as strict xfails rather than papered over: #1803 (the indexed bindings bypass excludes `Engine.POLARS_GPU`, so polars-gpu silently takes the scan path) and #1804 (the native polars bindings builder never receives `alias_prefilters` — previously an unnumbered xfail).
 - **Row execution context: `clear_row_exec_context` NULLs rather than restores, and that is now pinned rather than assumed** (tests + comments only; zero runtime delta — no production line changed). Review of #1793 asked whether the exit should RESTORE what the graph carried on entry instead of nulling, since `attach_row_exec_context` INHERITS on the way in (a `None` argument keeps what `g` already carries). Settled as NULL, for three reasons now each carried by a test: (1) `clear` is pure — it returns `g.bind()` and never writes through to the object it was handed, so an outer scope that set the field still has it afterwards and there is no caller state to save; that is what separates this from #1786, which WAS an in-place write onto the caller's own graph, and restore is the fix for a mutation. (2) The only channel restore would change is the RETURN value, and putting the seed back there IS the second half of #1786 — measured, a seed hand-restored onto a result changes the answer of the next query run on that result (7 → 2 → 1 rows). (3) No execution frame inherits a context it did not set: instrumenting `attach` over `graphistry/tests/compute` recorded 3907 calls and zero inheriting ones (53 entered on a graph already carrying a seed, but each was handed the identical `start_nodes` parameter, so the frame still owns the value), because the cross-segment `WITH` seed travels as the explicit `start_nodes` PARAMETER and never through the graph field. The new `test_exec_context_scoping.py` re-runs that ownership measurement as an assertion, so a future path that starts relying on inheritance reopens the decision loudly instead of silently losing an outer value. Mutation-checked in the deciding direction: implementing save/restore at all three attach sites fails 4 of the new tests on every runnable engine, while the existing #1793 suite passes unchanged — i.e. those tests could not distinguish the two designs and this file can. Engine-parametrized over pandas/cuDF/polars/polars-gpu from a fixed list plus a classified availability check (a missing module skips, a recognisable GPU-stack error skips with its text quoted, and any other failure propagates — a silently skipped GPU parameter reads as evidence of passing); GPU receipts on dgx GB10 / cuDF 26.02.01 / `docker run --gpus all`: 43 passed, 0 skipped.
 - **`is_lazy` is a type predicate, so the polars engine's eager/lazy split is checked instead of asserted**: `dtypes.is_lazy` decides WHICH member of the two-member `PolarsFrame` union a frame is, but it was declared `-> bool`, so that answer was discarded at the call boundary — an eager-only attribute (`.height`, `.columns`, `.schema`) reached after a lazy guard was unprovable, and the native polars chain closed the gap with `cast("pl.DataFrame", frame)`. A cast is not a type: it re-asserts, unchecked, the exact fact the predicate had just established, once per call site, and a wrong one surfaces as a production `AttributeError` rather than a CI error. `is_lazy` is now declared `-> TypeIs["pl.LazyFrame"]` (PEP 742), which narrows the *negative* branch as well as the positive — the eager side is the one that needed it, so `TypeGuard` would not have done — and the cast is gone. Four previously untyped chain-combine helpers (`_semi`, `_combine_edges`, `_apply_node_names`, and the `_known_empty` guard) now carry real signatures: `_semi`'s two frames share the `PolarsT` TypeVar because polars joins do not mix eagerness, and the two combine helpers take the `_LazyShim` collect-once duck-type they are actually called with. Typing `_apply_node_names` also retired a `getattr(next_step, "edges_empty", None)` — the shim declares that tri-state in `__slots__`, so a typo is now a checker error instead of a silent `None` that would have re-armed the very cardinality gate the guard disarms. Internal only: no runtime behaviour, no public API, and the `TypeIs` import is `TYPE_CHECKING`-only, so no new runtime dependency floor.
diff --git a/graphistry/tests/compute/gfql/index/test_index.py b/graphistry/tests/compute/gfql/index/test_index.py
index 8ac7bee5ce..8316d95193 100644
--- a/graphistry/tests/compute/gfql/index/test_index.py
+++ b/graphistry/tests/compute/gfql/index/test_index.py
@@ -29,7 +29,13 @@ def _engines():
         import polars  # noqa
         out.append("polars")
         try:
-            import cudf  # noqa
+            # `cudf_polars`, NOT `cudf`: engine='polars-gpu' is the cudf_polars GPU collect
+            # target and raises `ImportError: GFQL engine='polars-gpu' requires the RAPIDS
+            # cudf_polars stack` without it. Gating on `cudf` FABRICATED 20 failures on every
+            # box that has cuDF but not cudf_polars — a real configuration, and the failures
+            # are indistinguishable from product breakage. CI never caught it because its
+            # polars lane installs neither, so the parameter simply did not exist there.
+            import cudf_polars  # noqa
             out.append("polars-gpu")
         except Exception:
             pass