diff --git a/packages/cli/src/capture/assetDownloader.ts b/packages/cli/src/capture/assetDownloader.ts
index 9e783b934..21a881f3b 100644
--- a/packages/cli/src/capture/assetDownloader.ts
+++ b/packages/cli/src/capture/assetDownloader.ts
@@ -264,8 +264,10 @@ export async function downloadAndRewriteFonts(
 
   if (fontUrls.size === 0) return css;
 
-  // Limit font downloads to avoid bloat. Google Fonts serves 20+ unicode-range
-  // subsets per weight — we only need a few per family for video production.
+  // Limit font download attempts to bound worst-case egress and latency. Google Fonts serves
+  // 20+ unicode-range subsets per weight, so successes alone cannot be the bound: six transient
+  // failures can intentionally suppress later URLs in that family. Latin-priority sorting below
+  // makes the limited attempts useful while keeping this failure tradeoff explicit.
   const MAX_FONTS_PER_FAMILY = 6;
   const MAX_TOTAL_FONTS = 30;
   const familyCounts = new Map<string, number>();
diff --git a/packages/cli/src/commands/capture.test.ts b/packages/cli/src/commands/capture.test.ts
index 2a8ac84ed..c85ff09f9 100644
--- a/packages/cli/src/commands/capture.test.ts
+++ b/packages/cli/src/commands/capture.test.ts
@@ -57,7 +57,11 @@ describe("capture command — vision control", () => {
       ? Reflect.get(captureCommand.args, "capture-budget")
       : undefined;
     expect(captureBudgetArg).toMatchObject({ type: "string" });
-    expect(captureBudgetArg?.description.toLowerCase()).toContain("post-navigation");
+    const description = captureBudgetArg?.description.toLowerCase();
+    expect(description).toContain("post-navigation");
+    expect(description).toContain("cooperative");
+    expect(description).toContain("not a hard wall-clock timeout");
+    expect(description).toContain("already-started native/core work");
     expect(captureBudgetArg?.description).toContain("--timeout");
   });
 
@@ -81,28 +85,34 @@ describe("capture command — vision control", () => {
     );
   });
 
-  it("plumbs a positive --capture-budget into the post-navigation budget", async () => {
-    vi.spyOn(console, "log").mockImplementation(() => {});
-    vi.spyOn(console, "error").mockImplementation(() => {});
+  it.each([
+    ["1", 1],
+    ["45000", 45_000],
+  ])(
+    "plumbs positive integer --capture-budget %s into the post-navigation budget",
+    async (captureBudget, expectedBudget) => {
+      vi.spyOn(console, "log").mockImplementation(() => {});
+      vi.spyOn(console, "error").mockImplementation(() => {});
 
-    await captureCommand.run!({
-      args: {
-        url: "https://example.com",
-        output: "/tmp/hf-capture-budget-test",
-        "skip-assets": false,
-        "skip-vision": false,
-        "capture-budget": "45000",
-        json: true,
-      },
-    } as never);
+      await captureCommand.run!({
+        args: {
+          url: "https://example.com",
+          output: "/tmp/hf-capture-budget-test",
+          "skip-assets": false,
+          "skip-vision": false,
+          "capture-budget": captureBudget,
+          json: true,
+        },
+      } as never);
 
-    expect(captureWebsiteMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
-      expect.objectContaining({ postNavigationBudgetMs: 45_000 }),
-      undefined,
-    );
-  });
+      expect(captureWebsiteMock).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
+        expect.objectContaining({ postNavigationBudgetMs: expectedBudget }),
+        undefined,
+      );
+    },
+  );
 
-  it.each(["0", "-1", "Infinity", "not-a-number"])(
+  it.each(["0", "-1", "0.5", "Infinity", "not-a-number"])(
     "rejects invalid --capture-budget %s before capture starts",
     async (captureBudget) => {
       vi.spyOn(console, "log").mockImplementation(() => {});
diff --git a/packages/cli/src/commands/capture.ts b/packages/cli/src/commands/capture.ts
index 4456c650f..f9b4c11ad 100644
--- a/packages/cli/src/commands/capture.ts
+++ b/packages/cli/src/commands/capture.ts
@@ -15,8 +15,8 @@ function emitCapturePhase(event: CapturePhaseProgress): void {
 function parseCaptureBudget(raw: string | undefined): number | undefined {
   if (raw === undefined) return undefined;
   const parsed = Number(raw);
-  if (!Number.isFinite(parsed) || parsed <= 0) {
-    console.error("--capture-budget must be a positive finite number of milliseconds.");
+  if (!Number.isInteger(parsed) || parsed <= 0) {
+    console.error("--capture-budget must be a positive integer in milliseconds.");
     failCommand();
   }
   return parsed;
@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ export default defineCommand({
     "capture-budget": {
       type: "string",
       description:
-        "Post-navigation capture budget in ms (default: 120000); separate from page-load --timeout",
+        "Cooperative post-navigation budget in ms (default: 120000), separate from page-load --timeout; not a hard wall-clock timeout and cannot interrupt already-started native/core work",
     },
     json: {
       type: "boolean",