diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
index 98dbc95d4..8c5d1e367 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -15,6 +15,8 @@ variables:
   CARGO_TERM_COLOR: always
   # H100 = compute capability 9.0 — tells bindgen_cuda to skip nvidia-smi detection
   CUDA_COMPUTE_CAP: "90"
+  # Stable JWT secret for api_gateway tests (prevents env-var race between parallel tests)
+  JWT_SECRET: "CiTestSecret_Kx7mP9nR2sW5vY8bC3fG6jH1kL4pQ7tZ0uN9dM5eV8xS2wT6yA4zB_64chars_min"
   SCCACHE_BUCKET: $SCCACHE_BUCKET
   SCCACHE_ENDPOINT: $SCCACHE_ENDPOINT
   SCCACHE_S3_USE_SSL: "true"