diff --git a/docs/decisions.md b/docs/decisions.md
index 9c4e4017c..34c42326e 100644
--- a/docs/decisions.md
+++ b/docs/decisions.md
@@ -914,3 +914,30 @@ whatever previously held its new slot. Contract + rules in **api-conventions §7
 - **TPT subtype change at a matched id** stays delete+insert (EF can't retype in place); state resets and a
   new id is returned, so the SPA must re-seed item state from the PUT response (a stale id on a second save
   now 422s).
+
+## 2026-07-11 — Baseline security response headers + Phase-0 API hardening (#197, PR #279)
+
+Phase-0 of the #197 remediation — the posture-**independent** safe subset, shipped ahead of the
+fail-closed/CORS/versioning posture work tracked in #280–#289.
+
+- **Baseline security headers on every response.** New `ErsatzTV/Middleware/SecurityHeadersMiddleware`,
+  registered **first** in the pipeline (before the `/iptv` `MapWhen` branch and `UseCors`), so it covers
+  `/api`, `/iptv`, `/artwork`, static, the SPA fallback, and filter-produced 4xx alike — which is why it's
+  middleware, not an MVC filter. It sets `X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff`, `X-Frame-Options: DENY`, and
+  `Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin`. `nosniff` is the standing backstop for the artwork
+  content-type MIME-sniffing risk (#283). **CSP and HSTS are deliberately NOT included here**: CSP must be
+  validated against the ChicoryTV SPA's inline assets, and HSTS is a proxy/TLS-termination decision — both
+  belong to the #197 posture design (#284/roadmap), not this baseline. Headers are set eagerly (not via
+  `Response.OnStarting`); safe today because the pipeline has no `UseExceptionHandler`/`UseStatusCodePages`
+  that would `Response.Clear()` — switch to `OnStarting` if one is ever added.
+- **Constant-time API-key comparison.** `ApiKeyAuthorizationFilter` compares `X-Api-Key` with
+  `CryptographicOperations.FixedTimeEquals` (over UTF-8 bytes) instead of ordinal `string.Equals`, removing
+  the response-timing oracle on the write key. Accept/reject behavior is otherwise identical.
+- **Playout pagination clamped.** `GET /api/playouts` and `GET /api/playouts/{id}/items` now clamp
+  `Math.Clamp(pageSize, 1, 100)` + `Math.Max(0, pageNum)` before the query — applying the api-conventions §1
+  clamp convention the other paged endpoints already follow (these two were passing the raw client value
+  straight to EF `Take()`).
+
+The larger #197 posture (fail-closed writes, sensitive-read auth tier, CORS lockdown, `/api/v1` versioning,
+the OpenAPI security scheme) is decomposed into #280–#289 with the phased roadmap on #197; those PRs will
+append their own decisions here as they land.