diff --git a/.github/workflows/links.yml b/.github/workflows/links.yml
index c2baf94..99de0fd 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/links.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/links.yml
@@ -31,9 +31,12 @@ jobs:
                      https://hivecommons.dev/llms.txt https://hivecommons.dev/sitemap.xml \
                      https://hivecommons.dev/robots.txt \
                      https://hivecommons.dev/404.html; do
+            # `|| true` keeps a curl transport failure (DNS, TLS, timeout) from
+            # tripping `set -e` before the ::error:: line below is printed;
+            # --write-out still yields 000 in that case, which fails the != 200 test.
             status=$(curl --silent --show-error --output /dev/null \
               --write-out '%{http_code}' --connect-timeout 10 --max-time 30 \
-              --retry 2 --retry-delay 5 "$url")
+              --retry 2 --retry-delay 5 "$url" || true)
             if [[ "$status" != 200 ]]; then
               echo "::error::Live page $url returned HTTP $status (expected 200)"
               exit 1