diff --git a/src/lastrun.ts b/src/lastrun.ts
index 48f3893..9d76fe4 100644
--- a/src/lastrun.ts
+++ b/src/lastrun.ts
@@ -50,15 +50,6 @@ export interface Receipt {
  */
 export const endToEnd = "test/integration/mesh.test.ts";
 
-/**
- * canary is the short run that goes first.
- *
- * One machine, three images, one path walked end to end. **A suite that takes forty minutes is a
- * suite you hear from once a day** — and every fault found on 2026-09-01 would have shown up in
- * the first three minutes of it. Running this first means a broken change costs minutes.
- */
-export const canary = "test/integration/canary.test.ts";
-
 /** Where the receipt lives: XDG state, which is for exactly this — data a tool keeps between runs. */
 export function receiptPath(): string {
   const state = process.env["XDG_STATE_HOME"] ?? join(homedir(), ".local", "state");
diff --git a/src/suite.ts b/src/suite.ts
index 96fdafa..7eb57fc 100644
--- a/src/suite.ts
+++ b/src/suite.ts
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
  */
 
 import { spawn } from "node:child_process";
-import { canary, endToEnd, record } from "./lastrun.ts";
+import { endToEnd, record } from "./lastrun.ts";
 import { rebuild } from "./rebuild.ts";
 
 /** counted is what the runner said, or nulls when it said nothing recognisable. */
@@ -44,24 +44,15 @@ export async function runSuite(args: string[]): Promise<number> {
     if (built.length > 0) console.log(`built: ${built.join(", ")}\n`);
   }
 
-  // **The canary first, and stop if it dies.** It walks one path on one machine: a mesh comes up,
-  // a module lands, a consumer gets a credential it can use. Everything that broke on
-  // 2026-09-01 broke on that path, and finding out took forty minutes each time because the long
-  // run had to reach it.
+  // **No canary.** There was one: a second scenario, one machine, raised first so a broken mesh
+  // failed in two minutes rather than in forty. It walked exactly the path the first three tests
+  // of the long run walk — a mesh comes up, a module lands, a consumer gets a credential — and
+  // the long run reaches the end of that path in about 160 seconds.
   //
-  // Skipped when the caller named its own files — they asked for something specific — and when
-  // the canary is itself what was asked for.
-  if (ran.length === 0) {
-    const first = await runFiles([canary]);
-    if (first.code !== 0) {
-      console.log(
-        `\nthe canary failed, so the rest was not run. It is one machine and one path: a mesh ` +
-        `comes up, a module lands, a consumer gets a credential. Fix that first — the long ` +
-        `suite would fail on the same thing forty minutes later.`);
-      return first.code;
-    }
-    console.log("");
-  }
+  // So it cost a whole scenario, every passing run, to save about 45 seconds on a failing one.
+  // A scenario is three machines including a registry that boots a kernel to serve files, which
+  // is where the two minutes went. `test/integration/canary.test.ts` is still there and still
+  // runs when it is named; it is no longer raised on the way to everything else.
 
   const { code, seen } = await runFiles(files);
   console.log("\n" + reportOn(counted(seen), (p, f) => record(p, f, files)));