diff --git a/conformance/config/chainsaw-config.yaml b/conformance/config/chainsaw-config.yaml
index 8018572..38d7c40 100644
--- a/conformance/config/chainsaw-config.yaml
+++ b/conformance/config/chainsaw-config.yaml
@@ -31,9 +31,13 @@ spec:
         generateName: chainsaw-conf-
 
   # -- Concurrency. Tests are hermetic, so they parallelize safely; keep modest to bound
-  #    cluster load and keep fault-injection tests from contending.
+  #    cluster load and keep fault-injection tests from contending. Lowered 4->2: on the
+  #    small dev VMs, 4 concurrent heavy tests (KubeVirt CDI imports + Longhorn ops + many
+  #    namespaces) spiked embedded-etcd I/O into leader-changes/apiserver-ServiceUnavailable,
+  #    and because Kyverno admission is fail-closed each blip cascaded into mass test aborts.
+  #    2 keeps the suite completable in a single clean pass. Bump back up on prod-class hw.
   execution:
-    parallel: 4
+    parallel: 2
     # Fail the whole run if any test leaks a namespace/fixture (reproducibility contract).
     failFast: false