diff --git a/pkg/integration/clients/go_test.go b/pkg/integration/clients/go_test.go
index 11f6e754e..d3f15b88a 100644
--- a/pkg/integration/clients/go_test.go
+++ b/pkg/integration/clients/go_test.go
@@ -11,7 +11,9 @@ import (
 	"io"
 	"os"
 	"os/exec"
+	"syscall"
 	"testing"
+	"time"
 
 	"github.com/creack/pty"
 	"github.com/jesseduffield/lazycore/pkg/utils"
@@ -75,6 +77,17 @@ func runCmdHeadless(cmd *exec.Cmd) (int, error) {
 	stderr := new(bytes.Buffer)
 	cmd.Stderr = stderr
 
+	// If lazygit exits but leaves behind a subprocess that inherited its stderr
+	// pipe, cmd.Wait blocks waiting for that pipe to reach EOF for as long as the
+	// subprocess stays alive. Unbounded, that hangs the whole test binary until
+	// its global timeout fires, and the timeout throws away whatever lazygit
+	// wrote to stderr before exiting (a panic, a -race report) -- the very output
+	// needed to diagnose the failure. WaitDelay caps the wait: once the process
+	// has exited, Wait gives the stderr goroutine at most this long to drain,
+	// then closes the pipe and returns ErrWaitDelay, so the captured stderr
+	// surfaces as the test error instead of being lost.
+	cmd.WaitDelay = 5 * time.Second
+
 	// these rows and columns are ignored because internally we use tcell's
 	// simulation screen. However we still need the pty for the sake of
 	// running other commands in a pty.
@@ -83,12 +96,32 @@ func runCmdHeadless(cmd *exec.Cmd) (int, error) {
 		return -1, err
 	}
 
+	// pty.StartWithSize starts lazygit in its own process group, so we can signal
+	// the whole group at once. Capture the id now, while the process is alive:
+	// once Wait has reaped it we can no longer look it up.
+	pgid, pgidErr := syscall.Getpgid(cmd.Process.Pid)
+
 	_, _ = io.Copy(io.Discard, f)
 
-	if cmd.Wait() != nil {
+	waitErr := cmd.Wait()
+
+	// On any failure -- including a WaitDelay expiry caused by a leaked
+	// subprocess -- kill the whole process group so a straggler can't linger and
+	// wedge a later test or pile up across a CI run. Best effort: usually the
+	// group is already gone (ESRCH), and a subprocess that called setsid to
+	// detach into its own group is out of reach, but WaitDelay still unblocks us.
+	if waitErr != nil && pgidErr == nil {
+		_ = syscall.Kill(-pgid, syscall.SIGKILL)
+	}
+
+	if waitErr != nil {
 		_ = f.Close()
-		// return an error with the stderr output
-		return cmd.Process.Pid, errors.New(stderr.String())
+		// Prefer lazygit's own stderr as the error; fall back to the wait error
+		// itself (e.g. ErrWaitDelay) when it exited without printing anything.
+		if stderr.Len() > 0 {
+			return cmd.Process.Pid, errors.New(stderr.String())
+		}
+		return cmd.Process.Pid, waitErr
 	}
 
 	return cmd.Process.Pid, f.Close()