diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index a2c28ac2..7dece556 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
 ### Changed
 
 - `haiku-rag serve` renamed to `haiku-rag mcp` (only MCP is left). `--mcp-port` renamed to `--port`. Update any `claude_desktop_config.json` from `["serve", "--mcp", "--stdio"]` to `["mcp", "--stdio"]`.
-- `document.metadata` now uses source-agnostic keys: `source_revision` (was `etag` — S3-only and never populated for FS, so periodic sweeps re-ingested every file) and `content_type` (was `contentType`, snake_case for consistency). The v0.50.0 startup migration rewrites existing documents. All four source adapters (FS, HTTP, S3, future WebDAV) now write their native revision (mtime_ns, ETag, etc.) under the same key, fixing the regression where FS sources never short-circuited on unchanged files.
+- `document.metadata` now uses source-agnostic keys: `source_revision` (was `etag` — S3-only and never populated for FS, so periodic sweeps re-ingested every file) and `content_type` (was `contentType`, snake_case for consistency). The v0.50.0 startup migration rewrites existing documents. All four source adapters (FS, HTTP, S3, WebDAV) now write their native revision (mtime_ns, ETag, etc.) under the same key, fixing the regression where FS sources never short-circuited on unchanged files.
 - Ingester pollers skip their periodic sweep when the source already has queued or claimed jobs in the queue — saves the listing round-trip (`PROPFIND` / `S3 LIST` / FS walk) when work is backed up. FS push events from `watchfiles` keep flowing during skipped sweeps. Visible in Logfire as `ingester.poller.sweep` spans with `skipped=true reason=pending_work`.
 - Ingester now drains in-flight jobs on `SIGINT` / `SIGTERM` up to `workers.shutdown_grace_s` (default 60s) before cancelling. Cancelled jobs stay `claimed` and the reaper resets them on next start. Bonus: the pipeline no longer wraps `KeyboardInterrupt` / `SystemExit` / `CancelledError` as `TransientError` — those now propagate as intended.
 - `providers.docling_serve.base_url` now accepts a list. Jobs round-robin across the entries with each job's submit/poll/result pinned to one instance (task IDs are instance-local). The counter is per-process; for cross-process load balancing or failover, put an LB in front and pass a single URL here.
diff --git a/haiku_rag_slim/haiku/rag/ingester/sources/http.py b/haiku_rag_slim/haiku/rag/ingester/sources/http.py
index df23182b..a0d9041b 100644
--- a/haiku_rag_slim/haiku/rag/ingester/sources/http.py
+++ b/haiku_rag_slim/haiku/rag/ingester/sources/http.py
@@ -50,11 +50,16 @@ class HTTPSource:
         return httpx.AsyncClient(headers=self.headers, transport=self._transport)
 
     async def head(self, uri: str) -> str | None:
-        # HTTP doesn't get a cheap revision lookup in v1: the existing
-        # ingestion flow always GETs and the dedup uses MD5. A HEAD-first
-        # optimization could land later without changing this contract —
-        # callers just need to tolerate the extra HEAD.
-        return None
+        """HEAD probe for the cheap revision short-circuit. Returns the
+        ETag (or Last-Modified) so an unchanged remote URL can skip the
+        full GET. None on HTTP error so the caller falls back to fetch();
+        network errors propagate and the worker's classifier handles them."""
+        async with self._client() as http:
+            response = await http.head(uri)
+            if response.is_error:
+                return None
+        revision, _ = _extract_revision(response.headers)
+        return revision
 
     async def fetch(self, uri: str) -> FetchResult:
         async with self._client() as http:
diff --git a/tests/ingester/test_http_source.py b/tests/ingester/test_http_source.py
index 9130a1a5..5c5e3a49 100644
--- a/tests/ingester/test_http_source.py
+++ b/tests/ingester/test_http_source.py
@@ -30,10 +30,45 @@ def test_source_id_is_user_provided():
 
 
 @pytest.mark.asyncio
-async def test_head_returns_none():
-    # HTTP has no cheap revision lookup in v1 — the pipeline always GETs.
-    src = HTTPSource(source_id="default")
-    assert await src.head("https://example.com/a.md") is None
+async def test_head_returns_etag():
+    transport = _transport(
+        {
+            ("HEAD", "https://example.com/a.md"): httpx.Response(
+                200, headers={"etag": '"rev-7"'}
+            ),
+        }
+    )
+    src = HTTPSource(source_id="default", transport=transport)
+    assert await src.head("https://example.com/a.md") == "rev-7"
+
+
+@pytest.mark.asyncio
+async def test_head_falls_back_to_last_modified():
+    transport = _transport(
+        {
+            ("HEAD", "https://example.com/a.md"): httpx.Response(
+                200, headers={"last-modified": "Wed, 21 Oct 2025 07:28:00 GMT"}
+            ),
+        }
+    )
+    src = HTTPSource(source_id="default", transport=transport)
+    assert await src.head("https://example.com/a.md") == "Wed, 21 Oct 2025 07:28:00 GMT"
+
+
+@pytest.mark.asyncio
+async def test_head_returns_none_on_error_status():
+    transport = _transport(
+        {("HEAD", "https://example.com/missing"): httpx.Response(404)}
+    )
+    src = HTTPSource(source_id="default", transport=transport)
+    assert await src.head("https://example.com/missing") is None
+
+
+@pytest.mark.asyncio
+async def test_head_returns_none_when_no_revision_headers():
+    transport = _transport({("HEAD", "https://example.com/a"): httpx.Response(200)})
+    src = HTTPSource(source_id="default", transport=transport)
+    assert await src.head("https://example.com/a") is None
 
 
 @pytest.mark.asyncio