diff --git a/apps/server/spec/setup.ts b/apps/server/spec/setup.ts
index 484d582465..c84112610e 100644
--- a/apps/server/spec/setup.ts
+++ b/apps/server/spec/setup.ts
@@ -18,8 +18,13 @@ process.env.TRILIUM_ENV = "dev";
 process.env.TRILIUM_PUBLIC_SERVER = "http://localhost:4200";
 
 beforeAll(async () => {
+    // Load the integration test database into memory. The fixture at
+    // spec/db/document.db is pre-seeded with the schema, demo content, and
+    // a known password ("demo1234") that the ETAPI tests log in with. Each
+    // test file runs in its own vitest fork (pool: "forks"), so each gets a
+    // fresh in-memory copy and mutations don't leak across files.
     const dbProvider = new BetterSqlite3Provider();
-    dbProvider.loadFromMemory();
+    dbProvider.loadFromBuffer(readFileSync(join(__dirname, "db", "document.db")));
 
     await initializeCore({
         dbConfig: {
diff --git a/apps/server/vite.config.mts b/apps/server/vite.config.mts
index 2fa10ff798..5db1745722 100644
--- a/apps/server/vite.config.mts
+++ b/apps/server/vite.config.mts
@@ -13,7 +13,14 @@ export default defineConfig(() => ({
     env: {
       NODE_ENV: "development",
       TRILIUM_DATA_DIR: "./spec/db",
-      TRILIUM_INTEGRATION_TEST: "memory"
+      TRILIUM_INTEGRATION_TEST: "memory",
+      // Must be set in the vitest env (not in spec/setup.ts) so import-time
+      // constants like `isDev` in apps/server/src/services/utils.ts evaluate
+      // correctly. setup.ts top-level statements run AFTER its static imports
+      // resolve, so any env var assigned there is too late for module-load
+      // constants in transitively-imported files.
+      TRILIUM_ENV: "dev",
+      TRILIUM_PUBLIC_SERVER: "http://localhost:4200"
     },
     include: ['{src,spec}/**/*.{test,spec}.{js,mjs,cjs,ts,mts,cts,jsx,tsx}'],
     exclude: [