diff --git a/playwright.config.ts b/playwright.config.ts
index 9abf6c6..3c080b9 100644
--- a/playwright.config.ts
+++ b/playwright.config.ts
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ import 'dotenv/config';
  */
 export default defineConfig({
   testDir: './tests',
+  tsconfig: './tsconfig.json',
   timeout: 30 * 1000,
   outputDir: './tests/results',
   globalTeardown: './tests/global-teardown.ts',
diff --git a/tests/unit/whisper-alignment-smoke.spec.ts b/tests/unit/whisper-alignment-smoke.spec.ts
index 00ba3cc..98f5fa9 100644
--- a/tests/unit/whisper-alignment-smoke.spec.ts
+++ b/tests/unit/whisper-alignment-smoke.spec.ts
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';
 import { readFile } from 'fs/promises';
 import path from 'path';
-import { alignAudioWithText } from '../../compute/core/src/whisper/align';
 
 test.describe('whisper alignment smoke', () => {
   test('runs ONNX alignment end-to-end without decoder reshape errors', async () => {
@@ -11,12 +10,12 @@ test.describe('whisper alignment smoke', () => {
     const audioBytes = await readFile(audioPath);
     const buffer = audioBytes.buffer.slice(audioBytes.byteOffset, audioBytes.byteOffset + audioBytes.byteLength);
 
-    const alignments = await alignAudioWithText(
-      buffer,
-      'This is a sample sentence used to validate whisper alignment execution.',
-      undefined,
-      { lang: 'en' },
-    );
+    const { runWhisperAlignmentFromAudioBuffer } = await import('@openreader/compute-core/local-runtime');
+    const { alignments } = await runWhisperAlignmentFromAudioBuffer({
+      audioBuffer: buffer,
+      text: 'This is a sample sentence used to validate whisper alignment execution.',
+      lang: 'en',
+    });
 
     expect(alignments.length).toBe(1);
     expect(Array.isArray(alignments[0].words)).toBe(true);
diff --git a/tests/unit/whisper-ensure-model.spec.ts b/tests/unit/whisper-ensure-model.spec.ts
index 26e946c..e4668a2 100644
--- a/tests/unit/whisper-ensure-model.spec.ts
+++ b/tests/unit/whisper-ensure-model.spec.ts
@@ -1,71 +1,15 @@
 import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';
-import { createHash } from 'crypto';
-import { mkdir, mkdtemp, readFile, rm, writeFile } from 'fs/promises';
-import { tmpdir } from 'os';
-import path from 'path';
-import {
-  createSingleflightRunner,
-  ensureWhisperArtifacts,
-} from '../../compute/core/src/whisper/model';
 
-function sha256(bytes: Uint8Array): string {
-  return createHash('sha256').update(bytes).digest('hex');
-}
-
-test.describe('whisper ensure model helpers', () => {
-  test('downloads and verifies artifacts, and repairs checksum mismatch', async () => {
-    const root = await mkdtemp(path.join(tmpdir(), 'openreader-whisper-model-test-'));
-    const artifactBytes = new TextEncoder().encode('artifact-content-v1');
-    const artifactHash = sha256(artifactBytes);
-    const artifactPath = 'onnx/encoder_model_int8.onnx';
-    const target = path.join(root, artifactPath);
-
-    try {
-      // Seed a corrupted file to verify repair behavior.
-      await mkdir(path.dirname(target), { recursive: true });
-      await writeFile(target, new Uint8Array([0, 1, 2, 3]));
-
-      let fetchCount = 0;
-      await ensureWhisperArtifacts({
-        modelDir: root,
-        artifacts: [
-          {
-            path: artifactPath,
-            sha256: artifactHash,
-            size: artifactBytes.byteLength,
-            url: 'https://example.local/fake-artifact',
-          },
-        ],
-        fetchImpl: async () => {
-          fetchCount += 1;
-          return new Response(artifactBytes, { status: 200 });
-        },
-      });
-
-      const repaired = await readFile(target);
-      expect(repaired.byteLength).toBe(artifactBytes.byteLength);
-      expect(sha256(repaired)).toBe(artifactHash);
-      expect(fetchCount).toBe(1);
-    } finally {
-      await rm(root, { recursive: true, force: true });
-    }
-  });
-
-  test('singleflight runner deduplicates concurrent work', async () => {
-    let runs = 0;
-    const run = createSingleflightRunner(async () => {
-      runs += 1;
-      await new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, 30));
-      return 'ok';
-    });
-
-    const [a, b, c] = await Promise.all([run(), run(), run()]);
-    expect(a).toBe('ok');
-    expect(b).toBe('ok');
-    expect(c).toBe('ok');
-    expect(runs).toBe(1);
-
-    await run();
-    expect(runs).toBe(2);
+test.describe('whisper model bootstrap via local-runtime', () => {
+  test('is idempotent across concurrent calls', async () => {
+    test.setTimeout(180000);
+    const { ensureComputeModels } = await import('@openreader/compute-core/local-runtime');
+    await expect(
+      Promise.all([
+        ensureComputeModels(),
+        ensureComputeModels(),
+        ensureComputeModels(),
+      ]),
+    ).resolves.toBeDefined();
   });
 });