diff --git a/.claude/hooks/pre-push-spotless.sh b/.claude/hooks/pre-push-spotless.sh
index ff989f68a6..782d769d18 100755
--- a/.claude/hooks/pre-push-spotless.sh
+++ b/.claude/hooks/pre-push-spotless.sh
@@ -64,9 +64,13 @@ before="$(git diff HEAD -- '*.kt' '*.kts' 2>/dev/null | sha1sum)"
 log="$(mktemp /tmp/spotless-gate.XXXXXX.log)"
 if ! ./gradlew spotlessApply >"$log" 2>&1; then
   # Distinguish a formatting failure (block) from Gradle being unable to RUN —
-  # e.g. deps can't resolve in a restricted sandbox. An infra failure must not
-  # strand the agent; warn and let CI's spotlessCheck be the backstop.
-  if grep -qiE "could not resolve|could not (get|download)|handshake|connect timed out|no address|unable to (find|resolve) host|read timed out" "$log"; then
+  # e.g. deps can't resolve, or the wrapper can't even download the Gradle
+  # distribution, in a restricted sandbox. An infra failure must not strand the
+  # agent; warn and let CI's spotlessCheck be the backstop. The distribution
+  # patterns (the `gradle-<ver>-bin.zip` URL, the Java download exception, and a
+  # proxy 40x on that fetch) only appear when `./gradlew` failed *before* running
+  # any task, so they can't mask a real formatting/compile error.
+  if grep -qiE "could not resolve|could not (get|download)|handshake|connect timed out|no address|unable to (find|resolve) host|read timed out|server returned http response code|gradle-[0-9][0-9.]*-(bin|all)\.zip|could not install gradle" "$log"; then
     echo "WARN: could not run spotlessApply (Gradle infra/network failure), skipping the formatting gate." >&2
     echo "      CI's spotlessCheck still enforces formatting on the PR." >&2
     rm -f "$log"