Removes 32 tests whose subject was our repo scaffolding rather than any behavior an owner ever experiences: the Makefile's contents, the pyproject generator, the repo-config linter, the dist checker, a docs/code sweep, the dev-worktree cache seeder, the checkout directory name, and pyproject.toml itself. Every underlying gate survives — these were tests OF the checkers, not the checks. render_packaging --check and check_extras_consistency still run in install-checks (which ci depends on); check_wheel_contents still runs in scripts/release.sh. No checker source module was touched. The exemplar is why this matters. test_main_root_command asserted the checkout directory was named /solstone or /worktree — a clause added to accommodate the build harness's old worktree layout. The harness moved, the assertion silently stopped matching, and make ci went red in every lode worktree on this repo while telling us exactly nothing about the product. A test taught the shape of our scaffolding fails when the scaffolding moves, which is not information. Kept the build-adjacent tests that do assert owner-visible behavior: OCI image signature verification, install preflight, the install guard, doctor, setup, service. make ci green: 11864 passed, 14 skipped.