diff --git a/test/integration/mesh.test.ts b/test/integration/mesh.test.ts
index 1d682ab..42c5dc4 100644
--- a/test/integration/mesh.test.ts
+++ b/test/integration/mesh.test.ts
@@ -813,10 +813,13 @@ test("rotating a credential moves both ends, and the old one stops working", {
   // A real login from the consumer's machine, over the private network — not over loopback, where
   // pg_hba trusts anything and every password looks correct. That was done here once and the test
   // passed for an afternoon while verifying nothing: a deliberately wrong password returned a row.
+  // As the role the provisioner made, into the database it made. The provisioner names a role
+  // after the machine and a database after what the module asked for — which is the contract, and
+  // getting it wrong here made the test fail against a provisioner that had done its job.
   const login = async (password: string) =>
     await on("laptop", `docker run --rm -e PGPASSWORD=${quote(password)} ` +
-      `${pinned("postgres")} psql -h anchor.internal -p 5433 -U realapp ` +
-      `-d postgres -qAt -c "select 1"`, 120_000);
+      `${pinned("postgres")} psql -h anchor.internal -p 5433 -U mesh_laptop ` +
+      `-d realapp -qAt -c "select 1"`, 120_000);
 
   const diagnostics = async () =>
     `provisioner:\n${(await on("anchor", `docker logs real-provisioner 2>&1 | tail -20`)).out}\n` +
@@ -957,15 +960,19 @@ test("model access is answered by a record, and the key the mesh took is one it
     `> /tmp/assistant.json`);
   await must("anchor", `docker cp /tmp/assistant.json mesh-control:/assistant.json`);
   await mesh("module add /assistant.json");
-  await mesh("assign laptop assistant");
 
+  // The licences first. With none recorded at all the honest answer is that nothing provides
+  // model-access — correct, and a different refusal from the one being tested.
   await mesh(`licence add anthropic personal --serves '{"model":"a-model"}'`);
   await mesh(`licence add anthropic the-organisation --serves '{"model":"a-model"}'`);
 
-  // Refused until somebody says which, and the refusal names both candidates and the command.
-  // ADR 0024 warns this will be felt — which is correct, and correct is not the same as usable.
-  const refused = await on("anchor", `docker exec mesh-control /mesh-control plan laptop`);
-  assert.ok(!refused.ok, `a consumer was given model access without anybody saying which:\n${refused.out}`);
+  // Refused at the earliest point somebody could meet it: assigning records the assignment and
+  // then says the machine's set cannot be applied. The refusal names both candidates and the
+  // command. ADR 0024 warns this will be felt — which is correct, and correct is not the same as
+  // usable.
+  const refused = await on("anchor", `docker exec mesh-control /mesh-control assign laptop assistant`);
+  assert.ok(!refused.ok,
+    `a consumer was given model access without anybody saying which:\n${refused.out}`);
   for (const want of ["personal", "the-organisation", "licence use"]) {
     assert.match(refused.out, new RegExp(want),
       `the refusal does not name ${want}:\n${refused.out}`);