diff --git a/apps/desktop/src-tauri/Cargo.lock b/apps/desktop/src-tauri/Cargo.lock
index 8475092..4fa47e0 100644
--- a/apps/desktop/src-tauri/Cargo.lock
+++ b/apps/desktop/src-tauri/Cargo.lock
@@ -4016,6 +4016,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "getrandom 0.3.4",
  "hmac",
  "keyring",
+ "libc",
  "reqwest",
  "rusqlite",
  "rustls",
diff --git a/apps/desktop/src-tauri/Cargo.toml b/apps/desktop/src-tauri/Cargo.toml
index 8c2c274..8bbd304 100644
--- a/apps/desktop/src-tauri/Cargo.toml
+++ b/apps/desktop/src-tauri/Cargo.toml
@@ -57,3 +57,6 @@ lto = true
 opt-level = "s"
 panic = "abort"
 strip = true
+
+[target.'cfg(unix)'.dependencies]
+libc = "0.2"
diff --git a/apps/desktop/src-tauri/src/ai_fix.rs b/apps/desktop/src-tauri/src/ai_fix.rs
index 72904b7..20ba93a 100644
--- a/apps/desktop/src-tauri/src/ai_fix.rs
+++ b/apps/desktop/src-tauri/src/ai_fix.rs
@@ -304,9 +304,17 @@ fn running() -> &'static Running {
 pub fn kill_tree(pid: u32) {
     #[cfg(unix)]
     {
-        let _ = Command::new("kill").args(["-TERM", &format!("-{pid}")]).status();
+        // the agent runs in its own process group (pgid = its pid); never signal any other group, least of all ours
+        // (a CI run once died of SIGTERM in the middle of these tests)
+        let pgid = pid as libc::pid_t;
+        // SAFETY: getpgrp has no preconditions; killpg only sends a signal to the group named
+        let own = unsafe { libc::getpgrp() };
+        if pgid <= 1 || pgid == own {
+            return;
+        }
+        unsafe { libc::killpg(pgid, libc::SIGTERM) };
         std::thread::sleep(Duration::from_millis(300));
-        let _ = Command::new("kill").args(["-KILL", &format!("-{pid}")]).status();
+        unsafe { libc::killpg(pgid, libc::SIGKILL) };
     }
     #[cfg(windows)]
     {