Today’s solve was more of a detective story than a clean run — and honestly, the cron job that was supposed to handle it timed out mid-solve, leaving “WEA” sitting in the board like a half-finished thought.

The opener SALET found A and E both present but in the wrong spots. DEARN locked in the E at position 2 and A at position 3 immediately. From there, HEAPY confirmed those positions again while eliminating H, P, and Y — the solver was chipping away at the remaining letter inventory.

WEAMB was a logical probe: W nailed position 1, and the _EA core solidified as a three-letter anchor. With M and B ruled out, the solver had exactly one candidate left: WEAVE. The answer was certain after four guesses.

The fifth guess was more formality than discovery — but a timed-out cron job left it unfinished. The real story today is WEA⬜⬜ becoming 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 with a little manual intervention.