diff --git a/src/placeholder.test.ts b/src/placeholder.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2fdcbdc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/placeholder.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
+import { describe, it, expect } from 'vitest';
+import { existsSync, readFileSync } from 'node:fs';
+import { join } from 'node:path';
+
+const placeholderDir = join(process.cwd(), 'placeholder');
+const indexPath = join(placeholderDir, 'index.html');
+
+describe('placeholder/index.html', () => {
+ const html = readFileSync(indexPath, 'utf8');
+
+ it('starts with the HTML5 doctype', () => {
+ expect(html.toLowerCase().trimStart()).toMatch(/^/);
+ });
+
+ it('has the back-shortly title', () => {
+ expect(html).toContain('Cameleer — Back shortly');
+ });
+
+ it('is not indexable by search engines', () => {
+ expect(html).toContain('');
+ });
+
+ it('declares the dark color-scheme matching the live site', () => {
+ expect(html).toContain('');
+ expect(html).toContain('');
+ });
+
+ it('contains the sentinel string the deploy workflow greps for', () => {
+ // The workflow's post-deploy smoke test fails if this string is missing.
+ expect(html).toContain('Routes are remapping');
+ });
+
+ it('uses the live hero subhead verbatim', () => {
+ expect(html).toContain(
+ 'Cameleer is the hosted runtime and observability platform for Apache Camel — auto-traced, replay-ready, cross-service correlated. The 3 AM page becomes a 30-second answer.'
+ );
+ });
+
+ it('contains __SALES_EMAIL__ tokens at both the mailto href and the link text', () => {
+ const matches = html.match(/__SALES_EMAIL__/g) ?? [];
+ expect(matches.length).toBeGreaterThanOrEqual(2);
+ });
+
+ it('contains no other __TOKEN__ style placeholders', () => {
+ // Guard against a forgotten token that would survive the sed substitution.
+ const allTokens = html.match(/__[A-Z][A-Z0-9_]+__/g) ?? [];
+ const nonSales = allTokens.filter((t) => t !== '__SALES_EMAIL__');
+ expect(nonSales).toEqual([]);
+ });
+
+ it('references the sibling cameleer-logo.png by relative path', () => {
+ expect(html).toContain('src="./cameleer-logo.png"');
+ });
+
+ it('references the sibling favicon.png by relative path', () => {
+ expect(html).toContain('href="./favicon.png"');
+ });
+
+ it('has no