diff --git a/CHANGES.md b/CHANGES.md
index e1f35ee..245ef13 100644
--- a/CHANGES.md
+++ b/CHANGES.md
@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ concern - readable here, never shipped as something to parse.
 
 ---
 
-## 8.0.0-beta.5 - 2026-09-30 - Bug-report collector: tools/bugreport.py and instructions/bug-report.md
+## 8.0.0-beta.6 - 2026-09-30 - bug-report instruction: offer WIKI_TRACE=1 for a reproduction
 
 **Author:** Torben Nehmer
 
@@ -110,6 +110,7 @@ concern - readable here, never shipped as something to parse.
 - new: concept/source record notes name their layout-computed subdirectory; source usage names its required fields (Gitea #150)
 - new_page/type_resolver comments no longer claim only entities declare a layout:
 - Demo corpus follows the decided project pages: three states, seed with their items (#156)
+- bug-report instruction: offer WIKI_TRACE=1 for a reproduction
 <!-- /wikitool:bumps -->
 
 ### Bug-report collector: tools/bugreport.py and instructions/bug-report.md (Gitea #157)
diff --git a/VERSION b/VERSION
index 7a7a031..4fe27e9 100644
--- a/VERSION
+++ b/VERSION
@@ -1 +1 @@
-8.0.0-beta.5
+8.0.0-beta.6
diff --git a/instructions/bug-report.md b/instructions/bug-report.md
index f36f1b1..a26fd2c 100644
--- a/instructions/bug-report.md
+++ b/instructions/bug-report.md
@@ -122,6 +122,9 @@ Facts only: no page content, no guessed cause, no advice.
 ## Decision points
 
 - **The user declines the trace?** Run with `--no-trace`. The manifest records the exclusion.
+- **The failure can be reproduced, and there is no trace?** A distributed instance records none by
+  default. Offer to repeat the failing step in one new shell with `WIKI_TRACE=1` set for that
+  session only, then collect. Do not change the checkout's telemetry configuration for it.
 - **The user wants the report to name pages?** Run with `--titles`; the bundle then also carries
   `tree-paths.txt`, which lists every path under `kb/` and `raw/`.
 - **The collector exits 1?** It could not write the bundle (a missing input file, a full disk). Read