diff --git a/services/tech-step-llm-worker/Dockerfile b/services/tech-step-llm-worker/Dockerfile
index 31bb6cb..6cad262 100644
--- a/services/tech-step-llm-worker/Dockerfile
+++ b/services/tech-step-llm-worker/Dockerfile
@@ -21,6 +21,10 @@ FROM base AS build
 # different versions than what's on disk/CI.
 COPY services/tech-step-llm-worker/package.json services/tech-step-llm-worker/pnpm-lock.yaml ./
 RUN pnpm install --ignore-workspace --frozen-lockfile
+# tsconfig.json `extends` the repo-root base config (shared with every
+# other package's own tsconfig) — must be copied in alongside it, or `tsc`
+# fails outright (TS5083) before it ever reaches src.
+COPY tsconfig.base.json ../tsconfig.base.json
 COPY services/tech-step-llm-worker/tsconfig.json ./tsconfig.json
 COPY services/tech-step-llm-worker/src ./src
 RUN pnpm exec tsc -p tsconfig.json
diff --git a/services/tech-step-llm-worker/package.json b/services/tech-step-llm-worker/package.json
index 1c53515..ca3f2ee 100644
--- a/services/tech-step-llm-worker/package.json
+++ b/services/tech-step-llm-worker/package.json
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
   "version": "0.0.0",
   "private": true,
   "type": "module",
+  "packageManager": "pnpm@10.12.4",
   "description": "Standalone scheduled worker — periodically audits low-confidence tech-step NLP matches and transforms user corrections into TechStepTrainingSuggestion rows, both via a local LLM (node-llama-cpp). Talks to apps/api exclusively through /internal/tech-steps/* (no direct DB access, no Prisma client of its own). Deliberately outside the pnpm monorepo workspace (pnpm-workspace.yaml only covers apps/*/packages/*) — same reasoning as experiments/llm-tech-step-poc: node-llama-cpp's native binding must never be compiled as part of apps/api's own install/Docker build.",
   "scripts": {
     "start": "tsx src/index.ts",