diff --git a/test/integration/built-store-cross-node.test.ts b/test/integration/built-store-cross-node.test.ts
index b89a9e4..e251a61 100644
--- a/test/integration/built-store-cross-node.test.ts
+++ b/test/integration/built-store-cross-node.test.ts
@@ -258,7 +258,10 @@ test("a joined node's consumers open the store and broker the mesh built and ado
       `\n--- ${machine} mesh-host.log ---\n` +
       (await on(machine, `tail -60 /var/log/mesh-host.log 2>&1`)).out +
       `\n--- ${machine} declared registry-trust? ---\n` +
-      (await on(machine, `base64 -d < /var/lib/mesh-host/declared.json 2>/dev/null | grep -c registry-trust; python3 -c "import json,base64; d=json.load(open('/var/lib/mesh-host/declared.json')); print('registry-trust' in base64.b64decode(d['declaration']).decode())" 2>&1`)).out);
+      // declared.json is {"declaration":"<base64>","signature":"<base64>"} — JSON, not base64
+      // itself, so only the inner `declaration` field is decoded. (An earlier `base64 -d` on the
+      // whole file always errored and reported "no trust" whether or not the trust was declared.)
+      (await on(machine, `python3 -c "import json,base64; d=json.load(open('/var/lib/mesh-host/declared.json')); print('registry-trust' in base64.b64decode(d['declaration']).decode())" 2>&1`)).out);
   }
 
   // The shared base first — every module with code of its own stands on it.
@@ -317,26 +320,33 @@ test("a joined node's consumers open the store and broker the mesh built and ado
   for (const c of ["mesh-store", "mesh-broker", "mesh-controller"]) {
     assert.match(up, new RegExp(`(^|\\n)${c}(\\n|$)`), `${c} did not survive adoption:\n${up}`);
   }
-  // Steady a moment, then confirm the consumer did not crash-loop after connecting.
+  // Steady a moment, then confirm the consumer is up and did not crash-loop after connecting.
+  //
+  // **This is a liveness check, not the proof of hq issue 058.** By the time amqp-ping is built
+  // and assigned, its broker is already up and reachable, so both the patient runtime and the
+  // old exit-on-unreachable code connect on the first try — a green here does not discriminate
+  // the fix. And RestartCount counts in-place restarts of the *current* container, which a
+  // restart-on recreate (amqp-ping declares `restart-on: [amqp-env]`) resets to zero. The honest
+  // proof of the patient-reconnect logic is the mesh-tools unit test of fatalBrokerReason; what
+  // this asserts is only that the consumer settled and stayed up.
   await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, 15_000));
   assert.match((await on(NODE, `docker ps --format '{{.Names}}\t{{.Status}}'`)).out,
-    /amqp-ping\tUp/, `amqp-ping did not stay up on ${NODE}`);
-  // And was never restarted by the container runtime at all (hq issue 058): a runtime whose
-  // broker is not reachable yet waits for it in-process, so "the overlay came up a moment after
-  // the container" must produce zero restarts — churn here is the crash-loop 058 retired.
-  const restarts = (await on(NODE, `docker inspect -f '{{.RestartCount}}' amqp-ping`)).out.trim();
-  assert.equal(restarts, "0",
-    `amqp-ping was restarted ${restarts} time(s) by the container runtime on ${NODE}; ` +
-    `a runtime waits for its broker in-process (hq issue 058):\n` +
-    (await on(NODE, `docker logs amqp-ping 2>&1 | head -20`)).out);
+    /amqp-ping\tUp/, `amqp-ping did not stay up on ${NODE}:\n` +
+    (await on(NODE, `docker logs amqp-ping 2>&1 | tail -20`)).out);
 
   // The broker survives a restart as a reachable thing, not just a running one (hq issue 063).
   // The foundation's ports are opened from anywhere on input, but the broker is a published
   // container port — so a cross-node dial is forwarded, and until 063 the forward chain carried
   // no foundation rule: the joined node reached the broker only until its first connection's
-  // conntrack entry dropped. Restarting the broker here drops it deliberately; the node must
-  // reconnect and the vhost the provisioner holds must still be listed, proving the forward rule
-  // and not a surviving conntrack entry is what carries the connection.
+  // conntrack entry dropped. Restarting the broker here drops it deliberately, then a FRESH TCP
+  // connection from the joined node must complete — a new 5-tuple in state NEW cannot ride the
+  // old established entry, so only the forward rule 063 adds can carry it. (This asserts the
+  // reachability the fix restores; the vhost minting itself is already asserted above.)
+  //
+  // The probe reaches the forward chain because this runtime DNATs published ports (no userland
+  // proxy) — a cross-node dial is redirected to the container and forwarded. Were docker-proxy
+  // ever enabled, the same dial would terminate on the host and be satisfied by the INPUT rule,
+  // masking a missing forward rule; the lab's runtime does not use it, so the probe is honest here.
   await must(CONTROL, `docker restart mesh-broker`, 120_000);
   {
     const deadline = Date.now() + 180_000;