diff --git a/test/e2e/support/live-vitest-invocation.test.ts b/test/e2e/support/live-vitest-invocation.test.ts
index f8e9cb1379..ae51ec2f5a 100644
--- a/test/e2e/support/live-vitest-invocation.test.ts
+++ b/test/e2e/support/live-vitest-invocation.test.ts
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 // SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
 
 import { spawnSync } from "node:child_process";
+import path from "node:path";
 
 import { describe, expect, it } from "vitest";
 
@@ -16,6 +17,9 @@ import {
   validateLiveTestPath,
 } from "../../../tools/e2e/live-vitest-invocation.mts";
 
+const LIVE_VITEST_TOOL = path.resolve("tools/e2e/live-vitest-invocation.mts");
+const TSX = path.resolve("node_modules", ".bin", "tsx");
+
 describe("validateLiveProject (#6961)", () => {
   it("accepts the live project and defaults to it", () => {
     expect(validateLiveProject("e2e-live")).toBe(LIVE_VITEST_PROJECT);
@@ -234,12 +238,8 @@ describe("runLiveVitestCommand (#6961)", () => {
   it.each([
     ["missing", []],
     ["unsupported", ["runx"]],
-  ])("fails the direct CLI for a %s subcommand", (_label, args) => {
-    const result = spawnSync(
-      process.execPath,
-      ["--experimental-strip-types", "tools/e2e/live-vitest-invocation.mts", ...args],
-      { encoding: "utf8" },
-    );
+  ])("fails the workflow CLI for a %s subcommand", (_label, args) => {
+    const result = spawnSync(TSX, [LIVE_VITEST_TOOL, ...args], { encoding: "utf8" });
 
     expect(result.status).toBe(1);
     expect(result.stderr).toContain('expected "run"');
diff --git a/tools/e2e/live-vitest-invocation.mts b/tools/e2e/live-vitest-invocation.mts
index 8a513c007e..981f22c060 100644
--- a/tools/e2e/live-vitest-invocation.mts
+++ b/tools/e2e/live-vitest-invocation.mts
@@ -4,7 +4,18 @@
 import { spawnSync } from "node:child_process";
 import { pathToFileURL } from "node:url";
 
-import { spawnExitCode } from "../../src/lib/core/process-exit.ts";
+import * as importedProcessExit from "../../src/lib/core/process-exit.ts";
+
+// The root TypeScript package is exposed as CJS under the exact `npx tsx`
+// workflow execution mode, but as an ESM namespace under Vitest. Normalize
+// both representations so the executable and tests share exit handling.
+const processExit = (
+  "default" in importedProcessExit && importedProcessExit.default
+    ? importedProcessExit.default
+    : importedProcessExit
+) as typeof import("../../src/lib/core/process-exit.ts");
+
+const { spawnExitCode } = processExit;
 
 export const LIVE_VITEST_PROJECT = "e2e-live";
 export const LIVE_TEST_ROOT = "test/e2e/live/";