diff --git a/src/servers/permissions/registry.test.ts b/src/servers/permissions/registry.test.ts
index c25e78ed..1d9a44c1 100644
--- a/src/servers/permissions/registry.test.ts
+++ b/src/servers/permissions/registry.test.ts
@@ -18,7 +18,11 @@ import { assertPermissionTotality, isExemptApiPath } from './totality';
 // `cliamp` and `cliamp-audio` left on 2026-08-15 with `plugins/music/cliamp/` — see below. `vault` left
 // on 2026-08-18 with `plugins/vault/`, taking its `/vault` api prefix and its ws provider with it: a
 // plugin's routes are mounted behind the account gate like any other, so neither needs an exemption now.
-const REAL_WS = ['terminal', 'chat', 'task-runner', 'pipeline', 'desktop', 'sidecar'];
+// `desktop` is NOT here: server.tsx's handlers map has it commented out with the rest of the plugin,
+// switched off 2026-08-13. It was listed here until 2026-08-18 and made this file's own totality tests
+// fail for five days — the mirror claiming a provider the server does not serve, which is precisely the
+// drift the comment above warns about, caught by the check and then ignored because it was "the baseline".
+const REAL_WS = ['terminal', 'chat', 'task-runner', 'pipeline', 'sidecar'];
 const realApi = () => [...new Set(PERMISSIONS.flatMap((c) => c.api))];
 const surface = () => ({
   apiPrefixes: [...realApi(), '/auth', '/landing-page-data', '/waitlist', '/sidecar'],
@@ -44,10 +48,13 @@ describe('totality', () => {
     expect(() => assertPermissionTotality(s)).toThrow(/websocket provider 'newsocket' is served/);
   });
 
+  // Used `/gitea`, which claims no API prefix any more (unmounted 2026-08-13), so removing it from the
+  // served list produced no error and the test could not detect what it was written to detect. `/tasks`
+  // is core, mounted, and claimed — so withdrawing it is a real "a permission points at nothing" case.
   test('refuses a claim on a router that no longer exists', () => {
     const s = surface();
-    s.apiPrefixes = s.apiPrefixes.filter((p) => p !== '/gitea');
-    expect(() => assertPermissionTotality(s)).toThrow(/claims \/api\/gitea, which nothing mounts/);
+    s.apiPrefixes = s.apiPrefixes.filter((p) => p !== '/tasks');
+    expect(() => assertPermissionTotality(s)).toThrow(/claims \/api\/tasks, which nothing mounts/);
   });
 
   test('refuses a claim on a socket that is not served', () => {
@@ -74,9 +81,14 @@ describe('totality', () => {
 });
 
 describe('path → permission', () => {
+  // These used to read `/api/gitea`, which stopped resolving on 2026-08-13 when gitea's router was
+  // unmounted pending its own extraction — the permission still exists and still gates the FRONTEND route,
+  // but `permissionForApiPath` answers about mounted API prefixes and there is no longer one. Re-pointed
+  // at `/tasks`, which is core and mounted, so the test exercises the resolver rather than the state of
+  // whichever feature happens to be mid-extraction.
   test('resolves a prefix and its descendants', () => {
-    expect(permissionForApiPath('/api/gitea')?.key).toBe('gitea');
-    expect(permissionForApiPath('/api/gitea/repos/a/b')?.key).toBe('gitea');
+    expect(permissionForApiPath('/api/tasks')?.key).toBe('tasks');
+    expect(permissionForApiPath('/api/tasks/pipeline/ws')?.key).toBe('tasks');
   });
 
   test('does not match a prefix that is merely a string prefix', () => {
@@ -85,9 +97,15 @@ describe('path → permission', () => {
     expect(permissionForApiPath('/api/username')).toBeNull();
   });
 
-  test('longest prefix wins, so /dav and /caldav do not fight', () => {
-    expect(permissionForApiPath('/api/caldav/x')?.key).toBe('calendar');
-    expect(permissionForApiPath('/api/dav/x')?.key).toBe('calendar');
+  // Was `/dav` vs `/caldav`, both of which are unmounted now — and both claimed by the same permission,
+  // so it never demonstrated the property anyway. `/user` (account) against `/users` (user-admin) is the
+  // live overlap AND a real privilege boundary: resolving `/api/users` to `account` would hand the
+  // ordinary-account permission the user-administration API.
+  test('longest prefix wins, so /user and /users do not fight', () => {
+    expect(permissionForApiPath('/api/user')?.key).toBe('account');
+    expect(permissionForApiPath('/api/user/settings')?.key).toBe('account');
+    expect(permissionForApiPath('/api/users')?.key).toBe('user-admin');
+    expect(permissionForApiPath('/api/users/3/permissions')?.key).toBe('user-admin');
   });
 
   test('an unclaimed path resolves to nothing rather than to something permissive', () => {
@@ -236,7 +254,25 @@ describe('kinds', () => {
     expect(GRANTABLE_PERMISSIONS.some((c) => c.key === 'gitea')).toBe(true);
   });
 
-  test('every permission declares at least one api prefix', () => {
-    for (const permission of PERMISSIONS) expect(permission.api.length).toBeGreaterThan(0);
+  /*
+    Was `every permission declares at least one api prefix`, and that stopped being true on 2026-08-13
+    rather than becoming wrong: eleven permissions now declare none, because their routers were unmounted
+    pending plugin extraction while the permission stayed to keep the frontend route gated and existing
+    role grants meaningful. The test went red and was carried as "baseline" for five days.
+
+    What it was actually protecting is still worth protecting — a permission that gates NOTHING can be
+    granted and revoked to no effect, which is worse than not existing because it reads as a control. So
+    the invariant becomes "gates something a client can reach": an API prefix, or a frontend route.
+  */
+  test('every permission gates something a client can reach', () => {
+    // `notify` is the one that genuinely gates nothing today: no API (unmounted with its plugin) and no
+    // screen of its own by design — it produces notifications FOR other features. Named here rather than
+    // silently tolerated, so it is a known state and not a hole the test stopped being able to see.
+    const DORMANT = new Set(['notify']);
+    for (const permission of PERMISSIONS) {
+      if (DORMANT.has(permission.key)) continue;
+      const gates = permission.api.length + (permission.routes?.length ?? 0);
+      expect(gates).toBeGreaterThan(0);
+    }
   });
 });
diff --git a/src/servers/sidecar/pty/index.test.ts b/src/servers/sidecar/pty/index.test.ts
index 8fdac1c9..d76c3f60 100644
--- a/src/servers/sidecar/pty/index.test.ts
+++ b/src/servers/sidecar/pty/index.test.ts
@@ -117,7 +117,12 @@ describe('pty sidecar', () => {
         // The sidecar chooses the shell and the home itself, so pin both rather than spawning the owner's
         // interactive zsh, which would read their rc files and their history.
         SHELL: '/bin/sh',
-        HOME_DIR: '/tmp',
+        // `HOME`, not `HOME_DIR`. This said `HOME_DIR: '/tmp'` until 2026-08-18 and had silently done
+        // nothing since 2026-08-13, when that variable was removed from the platform entirely (the install
+        // root is derived now — see `data-path.ts`). `sessions.mjs` resolves `~` with node's `homedir()`,
+        // which on POSIX reads `$HOME`, so the shell opened in the OWNER's real home and `pwd` never
+        // printed `/tmp`. The test then waited the full 15s for output that could not arrive.
+        HOME: '/tmp',
         ENV: '/dev/null',
       },
       stdout: 'ignore',
@@ -132,7 +137,7 @@ describe('pty sidecar', () => {
     const a = client(wsBase, `sessionId=${sessionId}&cwd=~&cols=80&rows=24`);
     await a.open();
 
-    // `~` is resolved by the sidecar against its own HOME_DIR.
+    // `~` is resolved by the sidecar against its own home — `homedir()` in sessions.mjs, pinned above.
     a.send({ type: 'input', data: 'pwd\n' });
     await a.await(sawOutput('/tmp'), 'pwd output');