diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
index 12e8b04..de5db45 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -4,6 +4,11 @@
 build-rkorapclient-on-stable:
   extends: .install-rkorapclient
   image: rocker/tidyverse
+  variables:
+    # The Readme documentation prompting tests query LLMs and are therefore neither
+    # deterministic nor free. They run in their own job below, so that neither
+    # a model's mood nor an empty API account can turn this one red.
+    RKORAP_LLM_MODELS: ""
   cache:
     key: rkorapclient-ubuntu-stable
     paths:
@@ -17,3 +22,29 @@
     - R -q -e 'devtools::test()'
     - end_section testing
 
+# Prompts LLMs with the Readme, to check that it still enables them to use the
+# package. A failure here is a hint that the documentation has become unclear
+# (or that a model had a bad day), not a broken build, hence allow_failure.
+readme-doc-prompting-tests:
+  extends: .install-rkorapclient
+  image: rocker/tidyverse
+  allow_failure: true
+  variables:
+    # GLM-5.3-Flash solves all documentation tasks reliably, while the other
+    # low cost models are not there yet. Add them back here, comma separated,
+    # once they are: "gemini-3.5-flash-lite", "claude-sonnet-5", "gpt-5-nano".
+    # Do not set this as a project variable in the GitLab UI: those take
+    # precedence over the yml and would re-enable the tests in the job above.
+    RKORAP_LLM_MODELS: "hf:zai-org/GLM-5.3-Flash"
+  cache:
+    key: rkorapclient-ubuntu-stable
+    paths:
+    - apt-cache/
+    - ccache/
+    - rlib/
+  script:
+    - start_section docprompting "Prompting LLMs with the Readme"
+    - echo -e "apt-cache\nccache\nrlib" >> .Rbuildignore
+    - R -q -e 'devtools::test(filter = "readme-against-llm")'
+    - end_section docprompting
+
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-readme-against-llm.R b/tests/testthat/test-readme-against-llm.R
index 8c35df4..886ccf6 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-readme-against-llm.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-readme-against-llm.R
@@ -10,12 +10,14 @@
 )
 
 llmModels <- function() {
-  configured <- Sys.getenv("RKORAP_LLM_MODELS", unset = "")
-  if (nzchar(configured)) {
-    trimws(strsplit(configured, ",", fixed = TRUE)[[1]])
-  } else {
-    defaultLlmModels
+  configured <- Sys.getenv("RKORAP_LLM_MODELS", unset = NA_character_)
+  if (is.na(configured)) {
+    return(defaultLlmModels)
   }
+  # set but empty means no models at all, which is how these tests are kept out
+  # of the pipeline job that runs everything else
+  models <- trimws(strsplit(configured, ",", fixed = TRUE)[[1]])
+  models[nzchar(models)]
 }
 
 # Provider and API key environment variable belonging to a model id