diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 6d686294..3856ecfc 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -3667,8 +3667,8 @@ test-unit: all sizelint peellint $(TESTS)
 
 # ---- test-run: ww-native behavior harness (fold 2) ---------------------
 # Drives test/runww.ww over every test/wcc/data/<name>/case.ww, building
-# and running each case through BOTH compiler stages and checking its
-# leading `//ww:` directive. The harness prints `runww: all ok` and exits
+# and running each case through the cstage `ww` driver (T1) and checking
+# its leading `//ww:` directive. The harness prints `runww: all ok` and exits
 # 0 only if every case passes; the target propagates that exit code. NOT
 # yet wired into `make test` (fold 6). See test/runww.ww header.
 RUNWW_CASES = $(wildcard test/wcc/data/*/case.ww)
diff --git a/test/runww.ww b/test/runww.ww
index 404c3e27..bbcc70bf 100644
--- a/test/runww.ww
+++ b/test/runww.ww
@@ -1,10 +1,19 @@
 // runww — ww-native behavior-test harness, the analog of Go's
 // test/run.go. Each case file under test/wcc/data/<name>/case.ww carries
 // a leading `//ww:` directive describing how to test it; runww builds (and
-// optionally runs) the case through BOTH compiler stages and checks the
+// optionally runs) the case through the cstage `ww` driver and checks the
 // directive holds. This replaces the per-test C harnesses that embedded ww
 // source as C string literals and duplicated fork/exec/grep boilerplate.
 //
+// This is T1: the routine behavioral-correctness gate, cstage-only. The
+// wwstage-behavior run is deliberately NOT here — per the rob/USER tier+stage
+// split, a wwstage miscompile is already caught by T2 (cstage.s vs wwstage.s
+// byte-id over the same case.ww corpus, strictly more sensitive than re-running
+// behavior) or by T1's own cstage run (the both-wrong-identical blind spot is
+// cstage being wrong, which only a behavioral check on cstage catches). So
+// rule-10 stage-symmetry is enforced by T2 (a separate pre-push tool), not by
+// runww; routine runs stay cstage-only.
+//
 // Directives (first `//ww:` line of the case):
 //   //ww:run              compile + execute, expect exit 0
 //   //ww:run-exit N       compile + execute, expect exit N
@@ -248,8 +257,6 @@ export fn main() int = {
 	case void       => { };
 	};
 	let cdrv: str = joinp(bin, "/ww");
-	let wdrv: str = joinp(bin, "/ww_ww");
-	let wwok: bool = os.access(wdrv, 1i32) == 0;	// X_OK gate, mirrors C harness
 
 	// Fixed scratch paths: the pilot drives cases sequentially in one
 	// process, so reuse is safe; per-pid uniqueness for parallel invocation
@@ -289,16 +296,6 @@ export fn main() int = {
 			fail += 1;
 		};
 
-		if (wwok) {
-			total += 1;
-			if (runcase(wdrv, casepath, &d, errpath, tmpout)) {
-				pr("PASS wwstage "); pr(casepath); pr("\n");
-			} else {
-				pr("FAIL wwstage "); pr(casepath); pr("\n");
-				fail += 1;
-			};
-		};
-
 		ci += 1;
 	};