diff --git a/tests/executor.test.ts b/tests/executor.test.ts
index af83c9d..ce0fd5e 100644
--- a/tests/executor.test.ts
+++ b/tests/executor.test.ts
@@ -49,6 +49,23 @@ async function eventually(done: () => boolean, ms = 30_000): Promise<void> {
   while (Date.now() < deadline && !done()) await Bun.sleep(250);
 }
 
+/**
+ * Empty a workspace root the way its files were made: from inside a container.
+ *
+ * The sandbox runs as root, so on Linux everything it wrote into the bind mount
+ * is root-owned and the test process cannot remove it. (On macOS the daemon's
+ * VM maps it back to the calling user, which is why a plain rm looks fine
+ * there.) Clearing the contents as root leaves an empty directory that belongs
+ * to whoever made it.
+ */
+async function clearAsRoot(root: string): Promise<void> {
+  await Bun.spawn(
+    ["docker", "run", "--rm", "-v", `${root}:/x`, "alpine:3.20", "sh", "-c", "rm -rf /x/* /x/.??*"],
+    { stdout: "ignore", stderr: "ignore" },
+  ).exited;
+  rmSync(root, { recursive: true, force: true });
+}
+
 test("createExecutor returns null when the sandbox is disabled", () => {
   expect(
     createExecutor({
@@ -553,7 +570,7 @@ liveTest(
       expect(existsSync(join(root, session))).toBe(false);
     } finally {
       e.disposeSession(session);
-      rmSync(root, { recursive: true, force: true });
+      await clearAsRoot(root);
     }
   },
   180_000,
@@ -582,7 +599,7 @@ liveTest(
       expect(existsSync(join(root, live))).toBe(true);
     } finally {
       e.disposeSession(live);
-      rmSync(root, { recursive: true, force: true });
+      await clearAsRoot(root);
     }
   },
   180_000,