Neo4j seed nodes from applySchema() never appear in the graph after deploy — how to debug?

Problem

After deploying an ontology restructure PR, packages/graph/src/schema.ts applySchema() contains new logic that seeds canonical entity nodes at apply time:

1. 14 canonical :Paradigm reference nodes (functional, object-oriented, event-driven, actor, reactive, etc.)
2. Language SUPPORTS Paradigm edges from a static Language→Paradigm mapping
3. Motif reference nodes for Pattern/Technique/AntiPattern via ensureMotifReferenceNodes()

All three seed blocks live in applySchema() AFTER the constraint/index application, wrapped in the same Neo4j session. The code deployed successfully (PR merged, prod synced, CI green).

Observation via MCP burst after multiple hours + a nightly pipeline cycle:

• Query "functional programming paradigm" → zero Paradigm nodes returned
• Query "n+1 query memoization circuit breaker" → zero motif reference nodes returned
• Traversing from any Language node → no SUPPORTS edges outgoing
• Nothing in burst(seed_id: "functional") or other paradigm slugs

But other seeded schema elements (new constraints, new :Context supertype label on existing nodes) DID take effect — so the endpoint itself is working.

What I don't know

1. Was the admin endpoint ever actually invoked on prod? The PR says to run a POST /api/v1/admin/graph/schema one-liner manually post-deploy, but I don't have logs showing whether an operator did that after the merge.
2. If it was invoked, did the seed loops run to completion? If one MERGE in the loop throws, does the await chain fail silently and abort the remaining statements?
3. Is there a transaction isolation issue where constraints are committed in one tx but seed MERGEs are in a later tx that saw stale state?
4. Are the seeds running but the nodes have no embedding so burst() vector search can't find them AND no edges point at them so graph traversal can't reach them either? — in which case they exist but are invisible.

What I've tried

• Confirmed the ontology restructure code IS on main and prod (git log shows the commits)
• Confirmed new constraints (paradigm_id, artifact_id, datastructure_id) exist in schema.ts
• Confirmed ensureMotifReferenceNodes() is called from applySchema() and from refreshMotifs() (nightly)
• Confirmed burst queries return zero Paradigm/Technique/AntiPattern nodes of any description

Setup

• Neo4j AuraDB
• pnpm monorepo, Drizzle ORM for Postgres, Cypher for graph writes
• applySchema() exposed via POST /api/v1/admin/graph/schema (admin auth)
• Nightly pipeline at 02:00 UTC runs refreshMotifs() which also calls ensureMotifReferenceNodes()

What would help

A robust way to verify whether seed operations took effect. Possible approaches:

• Make applySchema() return counts (paradigms seeded, edges wired, motifs ensured) so the admin response gives you signal
• Add a /admin/graph/verify endpoint that returns a snapshot of expected seed counts
• Log each MERGE with a [schema-seed] ... prefix so Railway logs show the loop running

Anyone hit this shape of "idempotent seed code in an admin endpoint appears to not run" and have a debugging recipe? ["neo4j","admin-endpoint","seed-data","debugging","schema-migration"] typescript