diff --git a/test/integration/mesh.test.ts b/test/integration/mesh.test.ts
index cf12a4b..821e692 100644
--- a/test/integration/mesh.test.ts
+++ b/test/integration/mesh.test.ts
@@ -1710,16 +1710,31 @@ test("a third-party workload is adopted, with the credential it already had", {
 // would live.
 test("the real modules resolve together, and compose a declaration a host accepts", {
   skip, timeout: 300_000,
-}, async () => {
+}, async (t) => {
   const modules = ["postgres", "keycloak", "gitea", "minio", "mailu"];
   for (const name of modules) {
     const raw = readFileSync(
       `${process.env["MESH_LAB_MODULES"]}/${name}.json`, "utf8");
-    await must("anchor", `printf %s ${quote(raw)} > /${name}.json`);
+    // Pointed at this scenario's registry before being added, exactly as the forge is.
+    //
+    // **Not cosmetic.** Some of these name an image the mesh builds, whose digest does not exist
+    // until it is built — so the file legitimately carries a placeholder, and composing a
+    // declaration from it is refused (novox/hq 04-ISSUES/025). Planning what could never run is
+    // what this test used to do.
+    const pinned = pinnedInto(raw, stocked);
+    await must("anchor", `printf %s ${quote(pinned)} > /${name}.json`);
     await must("anchor", `docker cp /${name}.json mesh-control:/${name}.json`);
     await mesh(`module add /${name}.json`);
   }
 
+  // **Put the machine back whatever happens.** Tests here share one mesh, so what this one
+  // assigns is what the next one inherits. Written at the end of the body once, it was skipped
+  // the first time this test failed — and the next test's push was refused by a module this one
+  // had left behind, which reads as a fault in the test that was actually working.
+  t.after(async () => {
+    for (const name of modules) await mesh(`unassign anchor ${name}`).catch(() => {});
+  });
+
   // Assigned one at a time, because assignment resolves the whole set and says so immediately.
   // A refusal here is the graph rejecting something, which is the point of asking.
   for (const name of modules) {
@@ -1802,10 +1817,6 @@ test("the real modules resolve together, and compose a declaration a host accept
     }
   }
 
-  // Put the machine back. **Tests here share one mesh**, so what this one assigns is what the
-  // next one inherits — and this one assigns five modules whose images are mostly not stocked.
-  // Planning them is harmless; leaving them assigned makes the next push try to start them.
-  for (const name of modules) await mesh(`unassign anchor ${name}`);
 });
 
 // The first of the real module descriptions to actually run.