diff --git a/.github/workflows/release.yml b/.github/workflows/release.yml
index 23d32ba8..5ad69a73 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/release.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/release.yml
@@ -91,19 +91,19 @@ jobs:
     steps:
       - uses: actions/checkout@v7
 
-      - name: Install caddy + Playwright deps via apt
+      - name: Install caddy + Python via apt
         # Stock Ubuntu packages — no devenv, no nix. Caddy is klangkd's
         # default proxy engine child (KLANGK_PROXY_BIN overrides if needed,
         # but the default shutil.which("caddy") → /usr/bin/caddy path is
-        # exactly what apt installs). The Playwright libs are what
-        # `npx playwright install-deps` would install; we install them
-        # directly so the spec run doesn't need to.
+        # exactly what apt installs). The Playwright browser runtime libs
+        # (libnss3, libgbm1, libasound2t64, …) are NOT installed here —
+        # scripts/dist-smoke-test.sh runs `npx playwright install --with-deps
+        # chromium`, which resolves the correct package names per-OS. Hand-
+        # maintaining the lib list broke on the Ubuntu 24.04 t64 transition
+        # (libasound2 → libasound2t64, libatk1.0-0 → libatk1.0-0t64, …).
         run: |
           sudo apt-get update
-          sudo apt-get install -y caddy curl python3 python3-venv \
-            libnss3 libnspr4 libatk1.0-0 libatk-bridge2.0-0 libcups2 \
-            libdrm2 libxkbcommon0 libxcomposite1 libxdamage1 libxfixes3 \
-            libxrandr2 libgbm1 libpango-1.0-0 libcairo2 libasound2
+          sudo apt-get install -y caddy curl python3 python3-venv
 
       - name: Download wheel artifact
         uses: actions/download-artifact@v7