diff --git a/packages/mosaic/framework/tools/fleet/test-start-agent-session.sh b/packages/mosaic/framework/tools/fleet/test-start-agent-session.sh
index 67f4911b..eca95fdf 100755
--- a/packages/mosaic/framework/tools/fleet/test-start-agent-session.sh
+++ b/packages/mosaic/framework/tools/fleet/test-start-agent-session.sh
@@ -23,8 +23,26 @@ index=0
 if [ "${args[0]:-}" = -L ]; then index=2; fi
 case "${args[$index]:-}" in
   has-session)
+    # The holder always answers. MOSAIC_TEST_HELD_SESSIONS lets a case add
+    # other targets that should answer too — without it there is no way to
+    # model "tmux still reports the session" for a non-holder agent, and the
+    # launcher's pane-pid-unresolved branch is unreachable from this harness.
+    #
+    # A listed target answers only AFTER new-session, because the launcher asks
+    # this question twice about the same name: once before launching, where a
+    # yes means "already running, nothing to do, exit 0", and once after, where
+    # a yes means "the session survived". A shim that answered yes to both
+    # would short-circuit at the first and never reach the branch under test —
+    # it would look like coverage and measure the idempotency path instead.
     for argument in "${args[@]}"; do
       [ "$argument" = '=_holder:0.0' ] && exit 0
+      case " ${MOSAIC_TEST_HELD_SESSIONS:-} " in
+        *" $argument "*)
+          if tr '\0' '\n' < "${MOSAIC_TEST_TMUX_CALLS:?}" | grep -qxF new-session; then
+            exit 0
+          fi
+          ;;
+      esac
     done
     exit 1
     ;;
@@ -125,6 +143,7 @@ run_start() {
   local agent="$2"
   HOME="$home" PATH="$FAKE_BIN:$PATH" MOSAIC_TEST_TMUX_CALLS="$TMUX_CALLS" \
     MOSAIC_TEST_PANE_PID="${MOSAIC_TEST_PANE_PID:-}" \
+    MOSAIC_TEST_HELD_SESSIONS="${MOSAIC_TEST_HELD_SESSIONS:-}" \
     MOSAIC_TEST_HOME="$home" \
     MOSAIC_TEST_FLEET_OWNER=123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174000 \
     MOSAIC_HOME="$home" "$START" "$agent"
@@ -475,6 +494,33 @@ fi
 tr '\0' '\n' < "$TMUX_CALLS" | grep -qF new-session || \
   fail "dead-pane case did not reach the launch it is measuring"
 
+# #1241, the other way a pane fails. Above, tmux destroyed the session and
+# has-session said so. Here the session is still there and no PID comes back
+# after the retries — a different fault (the pane is alive but unusable, or
+# tmux is answering inconsistently) that an operator has to be told apart from
+# a runtime that died on startup.
+#
+# This case exists because the branch that handles it shipped with nothing able
+# to reach it: the shim answered has-session only for the holder, so every
+# non-holder agent landed in the session-is-gone branch no matter what. A
+# defensive branch nothing exercises is the same shape as the bug this whole
+# change is about, one layer down.
+: > "$TMUX_CALLS"
+HOME_NO_PID="$ROOT/pane-no-pid"
+write_generated "$HOME_NO_PID" "coder-no-pid"
+if output=$(MOSAIC_TEST_PANE_PID='' MOSAIC_TEST_HELD_SESSIONS='=coder-no-pid:0.0' \
+  run_start "$HOME_NO_PID" coder-no-pid 2>&1); then
+  fail "launcher reported success over a session with no resolvable pane PID"
+fi
+echo "$output" | grep -qF 'code=pane-pid-unresolved' || \
+  fail "session-present/no-PID was not reported as pane-pid-unresolved: $output"
+if echo "$output" | grep -qF 'code=pane-did-not-survive'; then
+  fail "a session tmux still reports was diagnosed as a destroyed session"
+fi
+if echo "$output" | grep -qiF 'heartbeat'; then
+  fail "an unresolvable pane PID is still being reported as a heartbeat-sidecar problem"
+fi
+
 # Exact stop derives the socket exclusively from the validated generated
 # projection and ignores an ambient socket supplied by the caller.
 : > "$TMUX_CALLS"