diff --git a/apps/desktop/electron/bundle-skew.test.ts b/apps/desktop/electron/bundle-skew.test.ts
index 46a421d4a8..d08aa97018 100644
--- a/apps/desktop/electron/bundle-skew.test.ts
+++ b/apps/desktop/electron/bundle-skew.test.ts
@@ -261,6 +261,24 @@ describe('detectBundleSkew against a real git repo', () => {
     expect(result).toEqual({ desktopCommitsBehind: 1, outOfSync: true })
   })
 
+  // apps/shared/src is compiled into both bundles, so a fix confined to it (a shared gateway client, the
+  // JSON-RPC layer) leaves the installed app just as stale as a renderer change does.
+  it.each([
+    ['apps/shared/src/json-rpc-gateway.ts', { desktopCommitsBehind: 1, outOfSync: true }],
+    ['apps/shared/README.md', { desktopCommitsBehind: 0, outOfSync: false }]
+  ])('counts a commit that only touched %s as it reaches the bundle', async (file, expected) => {
+    const { base, repoRoot } = makeScratchRepo()
+    const git = scratchGit(repoRoot)
+
+    writeFiles(repoRoot, [file])
+    git('add', '.')
+    git('commit', '-q', '-m', 'shared-only change')
+
+    const result = await detectBundleSkew({ commit: base, source: 'local' }, realGitRun(repoRoot), repoRoot)
+
+    expect(result).toEqual(expected)
+  })
+
   // The #92233 install, reproduced: the update rewrote the tree onto a fresh
   // orphan root, so the stamp resolves but is unreachable. Real git answers
   // `rev-list` with a positive count here — ancestry is the only thing that
diff --git a/apps/desktop/electron/bundle-skew.ts b/apps/desktop/electron/bundle-skew.ts
index 9f872008bd..ecb4cae7a5 100644
--- a/apps/desktop/electron/bundle-skew.ts
+++ b/apps/desktop/electron/bundle-skew.ts
@@ -60,11 +60,13 @@ export type RunGit = (
 ) => Promise<{ code: number; stderr: string; stdout: string }>
 
 /**
- * The apps/desktop paths that actually reach the user: renderer sources,
- * main-process sources, the HTML entry, the public/ assets Vite copies into
- * the bundle, app icons, and the packaging config. Docs, e2e specs, scratch
- * scripts, and dev tooling never reach the shipped app, so a delta confined
- * to them is not a torn install in any way the user can see.
+ * The paths that actually reach the user: renderer sources, main-process
+ * sources, the HTML entry, the public/ assets Vite copies into the bundle, app
+ * icons, and the packaging config -- plus apps/shared, which both bundles
+ * compile in (the renderer through the `@hermes/shared` alias, the main process
+ * by relative import). Docs, e2e specs, scratch scripts, and dev tooling never
+ * reach the shipped app, so a delta confined to them is not a torn install in
+ * any way the user can see.
  */
 export const RUNTIME_PATHS = [
   'apps/desktop/src',
@@ -73,7 +75,9 @@ export const RUNTIME_PATHS = [
   'apps/desktop/public',
   'apps/desktop/assets',
   'apps/desktop/package.json',
-  'apps/desktop/vite.config.ts'
+  'apps/desktop/vite.config.ts',
+  'apps/shared/src',
+  'apps/shared/package.json'
 ] as const
 
 const NOT_STALE: BundleSkewResult = { desktopCommitsBehind: null, outOfSync: false }