diff --git a/scripts/test-dependency-integration.sh b/scripts/test-dependency-integration.sh
index 5a26bb1f..966adc3e 100755
--- a/scripts/test-dependency-integration.sh
+++ b/scripts/test-dependency-integration.sh
@@ -3,7 +3,12 @@
 # Tests real dependency scenarios with actual GitHub repositories
 # Used in CI pipeline for comprehensive dependency validation
 
-set -euo pipefail
+# NOTE: Do NOT use `set -e` here — this file is `source`d into
+# test-release-validation.sh which deliberately avoids -e for its own
+# error-handling strategy.  Setting -e here would re-enable it for the
+# sourcing script, causing silent early exits (e.g. `((count++))` when
+# count is 0 returns exit-code 1 under -e).
+set -uo pipefail
 
 # Colors for output
 RED='\033[0;31m'
diff --git a/scripts/test-release-validation.sh b/scripts/test-release-validation.sh
index 5a71a207..588de900 100755
--- a/scripts/test-release-validation.sh
+++ b/scripts/test-release-validation.sh
@@ -94,18 +94,6 @@ check_prerequisites() {
         log_error "GitHub token setup failed"
         return 1
     fi
-    
-    # Set up GitHub tokens for testing
-    # No specific NPM authentication needed for public runtimes
-    if [[ -n "${GITHUB_APM_PAT:-}" ]]; then
-        log_success "GITHUB_APM_PAT is set (APM module access)"
-        export GITHUB_APM_PAT="${GITHUB_APM_PAT}"
-    fi
-    
-    if [[ -n "${GITHUB_TOKEN:-}" ]]; then
-        log_success "GITHUB_TOKEN is set (GitHub Models access)"
-        export GITHUB_TOKEN="${GITHUB_TOKEN}"
-    fi
 }
 
 # Test Step 2: apm runtime setup (both copilot and codex for full coverage)