diff --git a/package.nix b/package.nix
index 8270cdc..27d8cc5 100644
--- a/package.nix
+++ b/package.nix
@@ -9,6 +9,9 @@
   # 7.x in nixpkgs which doesn't ship libquery_engine.node, so we'd fail
   # at postinstall.
   prisma-engines_6,
+  bash,
+  coreutils,
+  gnused,
   openssl,
   sqlite,
   python311,
@@ -80,7 +83,21 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation (finalAttrs: {
     # configHook ran with --ignore-scripts; re-run install to trigger
     # native-module postinstall (bcrypt). --offline keeps it inside the
     # store seeded by configHook.
-    pnpm install --force --offline --frozen-lockfile --reporter=append-only
+    #
+    # `dangerouslyAllowAllBuilds` is load-bearing under pnpm 10: unlike
+    # pnpm 9, pnpm 10 refuses to run *any* dependency lifecycle script
+    # unless the package is allow-listed (`onlyBuiltDependencies` /
+    # `pnpm approve-builds`), and it skips them **silently** — the install
+    # still reports success. Without this, bcrypt's node-gyp postinstall
+    # never runs, `lib/binding/napi-v3/bcrypt_lib.node` is never produced,
+    # and the daemon dies at boot with MODULE_NOT_FOUND. That is exactly
+    # what shipped in 0d8c436 (the nodejs_20/pnpm_9 -> nodejs_24/pnpm_10
+    # bump) and took down nsecbunkerd on aio-demo. The flag restores the
+    # pnpm 9 semantics this build has always relied on; we are inside the
+    # nix sandbox against a store-seeded offline cache, so "all builds"
+    # is the same closed set of scripts pnpm 9 ran.
+    pnpm install --force --offline --frozen-lockfile --reporter=append-only \
+      --config.dangerouslyAllowAllBuilds=true
 
     pnpm prisma generate
     pnpm build
@@ -117,7 +134,22 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation (finalAttrs: {
     makeWrapper ${lib.getExe nodejs_24} $out/bin/nsecbunkerd \
       --add-flags $out/share/nsecbunkerd/scripts/start.js \
       --set NODE_ENV production \
-      --prefix PATH : ${lib.makeBinPath [ openssl nodejs_24 ]} \
+      --prefix PATH : ${
+        lib.makeBinPath [
+          openssl
+          nodejs_24
+          # scripts/start.js shells out to `npm run prisma:migrate`, and
+          # npm needs a shell to spawn at all. The pnpm-generated
+          # `node_modules/.bin/prisma` shim is itself a /bin/sh script
+          # that resolves its basedir with `dirname` + `sed`. Ship all
+          # three so the launcher works under any caller's environment
+          # (the systemd unit's PATH, docker compose, a bare shell)
+          # rather than depending on what the caller happens to export.
+          bash
+          coreutils
+          gnused
+        ]
+      } \
       ${
         lib.concatStringsSep " \\\n      " (
           lib.mapAttrsToList (n: v: "--set ${n} ${lib.escapeShellArg v}") prismaEnv
@@ -132,6 +164,22 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation (finalAttrs: {
     runHook postInstall
   '';
 
+  doInstallCheck = true;
+
+  # The bcrypt failure mode is silent at build time and fatal at boot, so
+  # assert the native binding loads from the *installed* tree exactly the
+  # way `dist/daemon/index.js` loads it. A build that can't require bcrypt
+  # must fail here rather than on the deployed host.
+  installCheckPhase = ''
+    runHook preInstallCheck
+
+    ${lib.getExe nodejs_24} -e \
+      "require('$out/share/nsecbunkerd/node_modules/bcrypt'); \
+       console.log('bcrypt native binding loads OK')"
+
+    runHook postInstallCheck
+  '';
+
   passthru = {
     inherit prisma-engines;
   };