diff --git a/e2e-tests/local_agent_auto.spec.ts b/e2e-tests/local_agent_auto.spec.ts
index c815f41e5..e66de233a 100644
--- a/e2e-tests/local_agent_auto.spec.ts
+++ b/e2e-tests/local_agent_auto.spec.ts
@@ -1,7 +1,17 @@
+import { expect } from "@playwright/test";
 import { testSkipIfWindows } from "./helpers/test_helper";
 
 testSkipIfWindows("local-agent - auto model", async ({ po }) => {
   await po.setUpDyadPro({ localAgent: true, localAgentUseAutoModel: true });
+  await po.page.evaluate(async () => {
+    await (window as any).electron.ipcRenderer.invoke("set-user-settings", {
+      enableCodeExplorer: false,
+    });
+  });
+  await expect
+    .poll(() => po.settings.recordSettings().enableCodeExplorer)
+    .toBe(false);
+
   await po.importApp("minimal");
 
   await po.sendPrompt("[dump]");
diff --git a/rules/e2e-testing.md b/rules/e2e-testing.md
index 1ed51e05a..8f535496f 100644
--- a/rules/e2e-testing.md
+++ b/rules/e2e-testing.md
@@ -196,6 +196,7 @@ If `npm run build` / Electron Forge packaging fails with `Failed to locate modul
 - **Filesystem-heavy IPC assertions**: Operations that delete or copy whole app directories (e.g. bulk app delete) can exceed the 5s default expect timeout on CI runners. Give the post-operation assertion an explicit `{ timeout: 30_000 }`.
 - **Fake Anthropic engine routes**: When app code uses Anthropic direct passthrough, the fake LLM server must handle `/v1/messages` (and provider-prefixed variants like `/engine/v1/messages`), not just `/chat/completions`. Anthropic tool results come back as user messages with `tool_result` content blocks, so fixture turn counting must skip those as user prompts.
 - **Legacy local-agent `code_search` coverage**: `code_search` is hidden when code explorer is enabled and ready, so specs that explicitly test `code_search` should set `enableCodeExplorer: false` and poll persisted settings before sending the fixture prompt. Otherwise local and CI can render different snapshots depending on code-explorer readiness.
+- **Local-agent request-dump snapshots and code explorer**: If a request-dump spec is not testing `explore_code`, pin `enableCodeExplorer: false` and poll `po.settings.recordSettings().enableCodeExplorer` before sending the prompt. Otherwise the serialized prompt/tool list can flip between `code_search` and `explore_code` depending on whether indexing finished first.
 - **Supabase destructive SQL migration proposals**: Auto-approve does not apply destructive SQL changes. If an E2E prompt returns a destructive SQL proposal (for example `DROP TABLE`), call `po.approveProposal()` before asserting that a migration file or app-file change exists.
 
 ## Triaging failures from a CI run's html-report