diff --git a/src/components/microservices/code-queue/src/index.ts b/src/components/microservices/code-queue/src/index.ts
index 088816c6..61358d21 100644
--- a/src/components/microservices/code-queue/src/index.ts
+++ b/src/components/microservices/code-queue/src/index.ts
@@ -1620,6 +1620,14 @@ async function runDatabaseClaimMoveSelfTest(): Promise<JsonValue | null> {
 }
 
 async function loadPrunedDatabaseTaskRows(where: "all" | "hot"): Promise<DatabaseTaskRow[]> {
+  if (where === "hot") {
+    return await sql<DatabaseTaskRow[]>`
+      SELECT id, updated_at, status, read_at, task_json - 'output' - 'events' AS task_json
+      FROM unidesk_code_queue_tasks
+      WHERE status IN ('queued', 'running', 'judging', 'retry_wait')
+      ORDER BY created_at ASC, id ASC
+    `;
+  }
   return await sql<DatabaseTaskRow[]>`
     SELECT id, updated_at, status, read_at, task_json
     FROM (
diff --git a/src/components/microservices/code-queue/src/queue-api.ts b/src/components/microservices/code-queue/src/queue-api.ts
index 390dee0d..3a881c17 100644
--- a/src/components/microservices/code-queue/src/queue-api.ts
+++ b/src/components/microservices/code-queue/src/queue-api.ts
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ function taskUpdatedAtMs(task: QueueTask): number {
 }
 
 function memoryTaskIsNewerThanDatabase(memoryTask: QueueTask, databaseTask: QueueTask): boolean {
-  return taskUpdatedAtMs(memoryTask) > taskUpdatedAtMs(databaseTask);
+  return preferHotTaskForRead(memoryTask, databaseTask);
 }
 
 function mergeReadTaskByFreshness(target: Map<string, QueueTask>, task: QueueTask): void {