diff --git a/.github/workflows/tests.yml b/.github/workflows/tests.yml
index 0110c9e76d..4bf418b247 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/tests.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/tests.yml
@@ -188,7 +188,7 @@ jobs:
           # across unrelated SQLite, tenancy, provider and terminal suites.
           # Bound the trees, not the child readiness/turn timeouts. At 4 the
           # PTY turn and serve-SIGTERM deadlines still starved intermittently.
-          HERMES_TEST_WORKERS: "2"
+          HERMES_TEST_WORKERS: "3"
           # Multi-process episodes (torture chamber, compaction kill -9,
           # gateway liveness, delivery exactly-once through a real gateway,
           # the cron virtual-clock soak) legitimately run past the 300 s default.