diff --git a/.gitea/workflows/backend-integration.yml b/.gitea/workflows/backend-integration.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7122145
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitea/workflows/backend-integration.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+name: Backend Integration Tests
+
+# Split out of the Tests workflow and made manual. It was blocking every push
+# and pull request: on 2026-08-18 the job held the runner for 3h12m, which also
+# kept frontend-e2e queued behind it for the same three hours.
+#
+# The suite itself is not slow — that run executed 89 tests in 87 seconds and
+# then hung with "Jest did not exit one second after the test run has
+# completed", so something keeps the event loop alive after the run. Until that
+# is root-caused, this runs on demand and under a hard timeout.
+on:
+  workflow_dispatch:
+
+jobs:
+  backend-integration:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    # The suite takes ~90s. This is not a performance budget — it is a stop so a
+    # post-run hang costs minutes of runner time instead of hours.
+    timeout-minutes: 15
+    services:
+      postgres:
+        image: postgres:16
+        env:
+          POSTGRES_USER: redefined_test
+          POSTGRES_PASSWORD: redefined_test
+          POSTGRES_DB: redefined_test
+        options: >-
+          --health-cmd "pg_isready -U redefined_test"
+          --health-interval 5s
+          --health-timeout 5s
+          --health-retries 10
+    env:
+      TEST_PGHOST: postgres
+      TEST_PGPORT: 5432
+      TEST_PGUSER: redefined_test
+      TEST_PGPASSWORD: redefined_test
+      TEST_PGDATABASE: redefined_test
+    steps:
+      - name: Checkout
+        uses: actions/checkout@v4
+
+      - name: Setup Node
+        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
+        with:
+          node-version: '20'
+
+      - name: Install deps
+        run: npm install
+        working-directory: backend
+
+      - name: Run integration tests
+        id: integration
+        continue-on-error: true
+        run: npm run test:integration:json
+        working-directory: backend
+
+      - name: Summarize
+        if: always()
+        run: node scripts/summarize-jest.js backend/integration-results.json "Backend Integration Test"
+
+      - name: Fail job if tests failed
+        if: steps.integration.outcome == 'failure'
+        run: exit 1
diff --git a/.gitea/workflows/tests.yml b/.gitea/workflows/tests.yml
index a9e0cdc..67cc1db 100644
--- a/.gitea/workflows/tests.yml
+++ b/.gitea/workflows/tests.yml
@@ -1,5 +1,12 @@
 name: Tests
 
+# backend-integration lives in its own manual workflow
+# (.gitea/workflows/backend-integration.yml) rather than running here. It held
+# the runner for 3h12m on 2026-08-18 — 87 seconds of tests followed by a hang
+# after the run completed — and blocked frontend-e2e behind it for the same
+# three hours. Run it from Actions before merging anything that touches the API
+# or the database.
+
 on:
   push:
     branches: [main]
@@ -37,53 +44,6 @@ jobs:
         if: steps.unit.outcome == 'failure'
         run: exit 1
 
-  backend-integration:
-    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
-    services:
-      postgres:
-        image: postgres:16
-        env:
-          POSTGRES_USER: redefined_test
-          POSTGRES_PASSWORD: redefined_test
-          POSTGRES_DB: redefined_test
-        options: >-
-          --health-cmd "pg_isready -U redefined_test"
-          --health-interval 5s
-          --health-timeout 5s
-          --health-retries 10
-    env:
-      TEST_PGHOST: postgres
-      TEST_PGPORT: 5432
-      TEST_PGUSER: redefined_test
-      TEST_PGPASSWORD: redefined_test
-      TEST_PGDATABASE: redefined_test
-    steps:
-      - name: Checkout
-        uses: actions/checkout@v4
-
-      - name: Setup Node
-        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
-        with:
-          node-version: '20'
-
-      - name: Install deps
-        run: npm install
-        working-directory: backend
-
-      - name: Run integration tests
-        id: integration
-        continue-on-error: true
-        run: npm run test:integration:json
-        working-directory: backend
-
-      - name: Summarize
-        if: always()
-        run: node scripts/summarize-jest.js backend/integration-results.json "Backend Integration Test"
-
-      - name: Fail job if tests failed
-        if: steps.integration.outcome == 'failure'
-        run: exit 1
-
   frontend-e2e:
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
     services: