diff --git a/ingestion/internal/wiki/merge.go b/ingestion/internal/wiki/merge.go
index dea8b45..89fe3c4 100644
--- a/ingestion/internal/wiki/merge.go
+++ b/ingestion/internal/wiki/merge.go
@@ -78,21 +78,26 @@ func parseSections(markdown string) (frontmatter string, sections []section) {
 		frontmatter = fmt.Sprintf("---\n%s\n---\n", strings.Join(fmLines, "\n"))
 	}
 
-	var cur *section
+	// Everything before the first `## ` heading — an intro paragraph, or, if
+	// the page has no headings at all, the entire body — is ordinary content,
+	// not something this parser is entitled to drop. It becomes a section
+	// with an empty heading, which Merge's switch never matches, so it falls
+	// through to the same "keep a's version" default every other unlisted
+	// section gets (hyperguild#103 review: dropping it here meant Merge, one
+	// caller up, would silently replace the whole on-disk body with the
+	// fresh extraction whenever a page didn't follow the ## convention —
+	// exactly the class of bug this whole file exists to prevent).
+	cur := &section{}
 	for ; i < len(lines); i++ {
 		line := lines[i]
 		if strings.HasPrefix(line, "## ") {
-			if cur != nil {
-				sections = append(sections, *cur)
-			}
+			sections = append(sections, *cur)
 			cur = &section{heading: strings.TrimPrefix(line, "## ")}
-		} else if cur != nil {
+		} else {
 			cur.content += line + "\n"
 		}
 	}
-	if cur != nil {
-		sections = append(sections, *cur)
-	}
+	sections = append(sections, *cur)
 	return
 }
 
@@ -109,6 +114,18 @@ func rebuildContent(frontmatter string, sections []section) string {
 	sb.WriteString(frontmatter)
 	for _, sec := range sections {
 		body := strings.Trim(sec.content, "\n")
+		if sec.heading == "" {
+			// The preamble pseudo-section: content before the first ##. No
+			// heading of its own to re-emit, and — unlike a named section —
+			// it is usually empty (most pages start directly with a ##), so
+			// an empty one must produce nothing rather than a stray blank
+			// line ahead of the first real heading.
+			if body == "" {
+				continue
+			}
+			fmt.Fprintf(&sb, "\n%s\n", body)
+			continue
+		}
 		fmt.Fprintf(&sb, "\n## %s\n\n%s\n", sec.heading, body)
 	}
 	return sb.String()
@@ -131,21 +148,30 @@ func rebuildContent(frontmatter string, sections []section) string {
 // these sections — questions, updates, evolving notes — a repeat is noise
 // rather than signal, and the failure is conservative: the page stops growing
 // instead of growing wrongly.
+// canonicalLine collapses a line to its comparison key: internal whitespace
+// runs (a re-extraction's bullet spacing, tabs vs spaces, trailing spaces)
+// must not make the same logical line look new. strings.Fields already
+// trims and splits on any whitespace run, so joining it back with single
+// spaces is exactly "same words, same order, whitespace-insensitive."
+func canonicalLine(line string) string {
+	return strings.Join(strings.Fields(line), " ")
+}
+
 func appendNew(a, b string) string {
 	seen := make(map[string]bool)
 	for _, line := range strings.Split(a, "\n") {
-		if t := strings.TrimSpace(line); t != "" {
-			seen[t] = true
+		if c := canonicalLine(line); c != "" {
+			seen[c] = true
 		}
 	}
 
 	var add []string
 	for _, line := range strings.Split(b, "\n") {
-		t := strings.TrimSpace(line)
-		if t == "" || seen[t] {
+		c := canonicalLine(line)
+		if c == "" || seen[c] {
 			continue
 		}
-		seen[t] = true
+		seen[c] = true
 		add = append(add, line)
 	}
 	if len(add) == 0 {
@@ -158,11 +184,11 @@ func mergeBullets(a, b string) string {
 	seen := make(map[string]bool)
 	var lines []string
 	for _, line := range strings.Split(a+b, "\n") {
-		trimmed := strings.TrimSpace(line)
-		if trimmed == "" || seen[trimmed] {
+		c := canonicalLine(line)
+		if c == "" || seen[c] {
 			continue
 		}
-		seen[trimmed] = true
+		seen[c] = true
 		lines = append(lines, line)
 	}
 	return strings.Join(lines, "\n") + "\n"
diff --git a/ingestion/internal/wiki/merge_test.go b/ingestion/internal/wiki/merge_test.go
index 042d804..6985d0b 100644
--- a/ingestion/internal/wiki/merge_test.go
+++ b/ingestion/internal/wiki/merge_test.go
@@ -54,6 +54,59 @@ func TestMerge_KeepsFrontmatterFromA(t *testing.T) {
 	assert.NotContains(t, got.Content, "title: B")
 }
 
+// --- hyperguild#103 review: a page with content outside any `## ` section ---
+// must never lose that content on merge. parseSections used to only capture
+// text between `## ` headings — anything before the first heading (a common,
+// ordinary shape for a hand-written note: an intro paragraph before the first
+// section) or, worse, an entire page with no `## ` headings at all (a legacy
+// note, a stub, any hand-edit that doesn't follow the section convention)
+// vanished silently. Merge would then fill the page entirely from the fresh
+// extraction — the opposite of "never silently rewrite what a human put
+// there," the guarantee this whole file exists to provide.
+
+func TestMerge_PreservesOnDiskContentWithNoSectionHeadings(t *testing.T) {
+	a := Page{Path: "wiki/x.md", Content: "---\ntitle: X\n---\n\nJust some free text a human wrote. No section headings at all.\n"}
+	b := Page{Path: "wiki/x.md", Content: "---\ntitle: X\n---\n\n## Definition\n\nFresh extraction's take.\n"}
+
+	got := Merge(a, b)
+	assert.Contains(t, got.Content, "Just some free text a human wrote",
+		"on-disk content with no ## headings must survive the merge, not be replaced wholesale by the fresh extraction")
+}
+
+func TestMerge_PreservesPreambleBeforeFirstHeading(t *testing.T) {
+	a := Page{Path: "wiki/x.md", Content: "---\ntitle: X\n---\n\nAn intro paragraph before the first heading.\n\n## Definition\n\nA thing.\n"}
+	b := Page{Path: "wiki/x.md", Content: "---\ntitle: X\n---\n\n## Definition\n\nA thing.\n"}
+
+	got := Merge(a, b)
+	assert.Contains(t, got.Content, "An intro paragraph before the first heading",
+		"text before the first ## heading is ordinary page content, not something the parser is entitled to drop")
+}
+
+// --- hyperguild#103 review: dedup must be whitespace-insensitive -----------
+// Page content is produced by an LLM per run, so byte-identical re-extraction
+// of "the same" logical line is not guaranteed — different bullet spacing or
+// trailing whitespace on an otherwise-identical line must still dedup, or
+// idempotency only holds when the extractor happens to reproduce whitespace
+// exactly, which is not a real guarantee.
+
+func TestMerge_AppendSectionDedupsAcrossWhitespaceVariants(t *testing.T) {
+	a := Page{Path: "p.md", Content: "---\ntitle: X\n---\n\n## Open Questions\n\n- Does this converge?\n"}
+	b := Page{Path: "p.md", Content: "---\ntitle: X\n---\n\n## Open Questions\n\n-   Does this converge?  \n"}
+
+	got := Merge(a, b)
+	assert.Equal(t, 1, strings.Count(got.Content, "Does this converge?"),
+		"same logical line with different whitespace must dedup, not duplicate")
+}
+
+func TestMerge_BulletSectionDedupsAcrossWhitespaceVariants(t *testing.T) {
+	a := Page{Path: "p.md", Content: "---\ntitle: X\n---\n\n## Related Concepts\n\n- [[bar|Bar]]\n"}
+	b := Page{Path: "p.md", Content: "---\ntitle: X\n---\n\n## Related Concepts\n\n-  [[bar|Bar]]\n"}
+
+	got := Merge(a, b)
+	assert.Equal(t, 1, strings.Count(got.Content, "[[bar|Bar]]"),
+		"same logical bullet with different whitespace must dedup, not duplicate")
+}
+
 // --- brain#21/B1: merging must be safe to run again -------------------------
 
 func TestMerge_AppendSectionDoesNotDuplicateContentAlreadyPresent(t *testing.T) {