diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 8b4ed87..e04da54 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -26,6 +26,10 @@
 - Experience Tracker: An unnamed panel no longer marks a page's own experience file as
   panel-scoped. When it did, that page's entire experience became invisible whenever no panel was
   open.
+- Test Plan: A plan file passed to `explorbot test` is now resolved once — the pre-config peek and
+  the run itself share the same parsed file, instead of being scanned and parsed twice with two
+  different search orders. Cross-site directory scanning (looking a path up across every registered
+  site, used by plan loading and by prima's `status`) now has a single owner in `global-config.ts`.
 - [Planner] A test now covers one operation instead of a record's whole lifecycle. Creating a
   record, renaming it and deleting it used to land in a single scenario, because the planner was
   told to merge any scenarios that depended on each other. Those chains were the longest tests of a
diff --git a/bin/explorbot-cli.ts b/bin/explorbot-cli.ts
index bc5a37a..d3cfea7 100755
--- a/bin/explorbot-cli.ts
+++ b/bin/explorbot-cli.ts
@@ -336,12 +336,14 @@ addCommonOptions(program.command('test <planfile> [index]').description('Execute
         indexArg = planfile;
       }
 
-      const planTarget = Plan.loadFromFile(planfileArg)?.startUrl;
+      const peeked = Plan.loadFromFile(planfileArg);
 
-      const explorBot = new ExplorBot(buildExplorBotOptions(planTarget, options));
+      const explorBot = new ExplorBot(buildExplorBotOptions(peeked?.startUrl, options));
       await explorBot.start();
 
-      const plan = explorBot.loadPlan(planfileArg);
+      let plan = peeked;
+      if (plan) explorBot.setCurrentPlan(plan);
+      if (!plan) plan = explorBot.loadPlan(planfileArg);
       const pending = plan.getPendingTests();
       log(`Plan loaded: "${plan.title}" (${plan.tests.length} tests, ${pending.length} pending)`);
 
diff --git a/boat/prima/src/prima.ts b/boat/prima/src/prima.ts
index c5cfdbd..392c13f 100644
--- a/boat/prima/src/prima.ts
+++ b/boat/prima/src/prima.ts
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ import { getAliveEndpoint, launchServer, listInstances, stopServer } from '../..
 import { ConfigCommand } from '../../../src/commands/config-command.ts';
 import { ConfigMissingError, ConfigParser, EXPLORBOT_ENV_VARS, type ExplorbotConfig, outputPath } from '../../../src/config.ts';
 import { ExplorBot } from '../../../src/explorbot.ts';
-import { listSites } from '../../../src/global-config.ts';
+import { findSiteWith, listSites } from '../../../src/global-config.ts';
 import { Reporter } from '../../../src/reporter.ts';
 import type { WebPageState } from '../../../src/state-manager.ts';
 import { Stats } from '../../../src/stats.ts';
@@ -1067,8 +1067,7 @@ export class Prima {
 
   async status(hash: string): Promise<EnvelopeData> {
     if (!this.artifactsDir) {
-      const sites = listSites();
-      const site = sites.find((candidate) => existsSync(path.join(candidate.dir, 'output', 'prima', hash))) || sites[0];
+      const site = findSiteWith(path.join('output', 'prima', hash)) || listSites()[0];
       if (site && !this.configBaseUrl()) this.sessionUrl = site.url;
       await this.loadConfig();
     }
diff --git a/src/commands/plans-command.ts b/src/commands/plans-command.ts
index 953068f..e98247c 100644
--- a/src/commands/plans-command.ts
+++ b/src/commands/plans-command.ts
@@ -21,8 +21,7 @@ export class PlansCommand extends BaseCommand {
       return;
     }
 
-    const file = this.resolvePlanFile(target, files);
-    const plan = Plan.fromMarkdown(file.path);
+    const { plan, file } = this.resolvePlanFile(target, files);
     this.printPlanDetails(plan, file);
   }
 
@@ -71,12 +70,12 @@ export class PlansCommand extends BaseCommand {
     tag('info').log(`${getCliName()} test 1 --from-plan ${file.name}`);
   }
 
-  private resolvePlanFile(target: string, files: PlanFile[]): PlanFile {
+  private resolvePlanFile(target: string, files: PlanFile[]): { plan: Plan; file: PlanFile } {
     const index = Number.parseInt(target, 10);
     if (!Number.isNaN(index) && String(index) === target) {
       const file = files[index - 1];
       if (!file) throw new Error(`Plan #${target} not found. Available: 1-${files.length}`);
-      return file;
+      return { plan: Plan.fromMarkdown(file.path), file };
     }
 
     const plan = Plan.loadFromFile(target, this.explorBot.getPlansDir());
@@ -84,11 +83,12 @@ export class PlansCommand extends BaseCommand {
       throw new Error(`Plan file not found: ${target}`);
     }
 
-    return {
+    const file = {
       name: path.basename(plan.filePath),
       path: plan.filePath,
       modifiedAt: statSync(plan.filePath).mtimeMs,
     };
+    return { plan, file };
   }
 }
 
diff --git a/src/explorbot.ts b/src/explorbot.ts
index fe23e7e..c9891f3 100644
--- a/src/explorbot.ts
+++ b/src/explorbot.ts
@@ -465,9 +465,9 @@ export class ExplorBot {
   }
 
   loadPlans(filename: string): Plan[] {
-    const plan = Plan.loadFromFile(filename, this.getPlansDir());
-    if (!plan?.filePath) throw new Error(`Plan file not found: ${filename}`);
-    return parsePlansFromMarkdown(plan.filePath);
+    const filePath = Plan.resolveFile(filename, this.getPlansDir());
+    if (!filePath) throw new Error(`Plan file not found: ${filename}`);
+    return parsePlansFromMarkdown(filePath);
   }
 
   setCurrentPlan(plan?: Plan): void {
diff --git a/src/global-config.ts b/src/global-config.ts
index 6c3786d..1caba58 100644
--- a/src/global-config.ts
+++ b/src/global-config.ts
@@ -47,6 +47,14 @@ export function listSites(): SiteRecord[] {
     .sort((a, b) => b.lastRunAt.localeCompare(a.lastRunAt));
 }
 
+export function findSiteWith(subpath: string): SiteRecord | undefined {
+  return listSites().find((site) => existsSync(join(site.dir, subpath)));
+}
+
+export function listSitePlanDirs(): string[] {
+  return listSites().map((site) => join(site.dir, 'output', 'plans'));
+}
+
 export function registerSite(baseUrl: string): SiteRecord {
   const folder = siteFolderName(baseUrl);
   const dir = join(sitesDir(), folder);
diff --git a/src/test-plan.ts b/src/test-plan.ts
index beeade7..29be0df 100644
--- a/src/test-plan.ts
+++ b/src/test-plan.ts
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ import { existsSync } from 'node:fs';
 import path from 'node:path';
 import figures from 'figures';
 import type { ActionResult } from './action-result.ts';
-import { listSites } from './global-config.ts';
+import { listSitePlanDirs } from './global-config.ts';
 import { WebPageState } from './state-manager.ts';
 import { tag } from './utils/logger.ts';
 import { parsePlanFromMarkdown, planToAiContext, savePlanToMarkdown, savePlansToMarkdown } from './utils/test-plan-markdown.ts';
@@ -391,8 +391,6 @@ export class Test extends Task {
   }
 }
 
-const SITE_PLANS_DIR = ['output', 'plans'];
-
 type PlanChangeListener = (tests: Test[]) => void;
 
 export class Plan {
@@ -479,25 +477,29 @@ export class Plan {
 
   updateStatus(): void {}
 
-  static loadFromFile(file: string, plansDir?: string): Plan | null {
+  static resolveFile(file: string, plansDir?: string): string | null {
     const names = [file];
     if (!file.endsWith('.md')) names.push(`${file}.md`);
 
     const dirs = [process.cwd()];
     if (plansDir) dirs.push(plansDir);
-    if (!plansDir) dirs.push(...listSites().map((site) => path.join(site.dir, ...SITE_PLANS_DIR)));
+    if (!plansDir) dirs.push(...listSitePlanDirs());
 
     for (const dir of dirs) {
       const filePath = names.map((name) => path.resolve(dir, name)).find(existsSync);
-      if (!filePath) continue;
-      const loaded = parsePlanFromMarkdown(filePath);
-      loaded.filePath = filePath;
-      return loaded;
+      if (filePath) return filePath;
     }
-
     return null;
   }
 
+  static loadFromFile(file: string, plansDir?: string): Plan | null {
+    const filePath = Plan.resolveFile(file, plansDir);
+    if (!filePath) return null;
+    const loaded = parsePlanFromMarkdown(filePath);
+    loaded.filePath = filePath;
+    return loaded;
+  }
+
   static fromMarkdown(filePath: string): Plan {
     return parsePlanFromMarkdown(filePath);
   }
diff --git a/tests/unit/test-plan.test.ts b/tests/unit/test-plan.test.ts
index 7233d66..95fa86c 100644
--- a/tests/unit/test-plan.test.ts
+++ b/tests/unit/test-plan.test.ts
@@ -472,4 +472,42 @@ priority: normal
       expect(Plan.loadFromFile('missing')).toBeNull();
     });
   });
+
+  describe('resolveFile', () => {
+    let home: string;
+    let workDir: string;
+    let originalCwd: string;
+    let homedirSpy: ReturnType<typeof spyOn>;
+
+    const writePlan = (dir: string, name: string): string => {
+      mkdirSync(dir, { recursive: true });
+      const file = join(dir, name);
+      writeFileSync(file, '# Plan\n', 'utf-8');
+      return file;
+    };
+
+    beforeEach(() => {
+      home = mkdtempSync(join(tmpdir(), 'explorbot-home-'));
+      workDir = mkdtempSync(join(tmpdir(), 'explorbot-work-'));
+      homedirSpy = spyOn(os, 'homedir').mockReturnValue(home);
+      originalCwd = process.cwd();
+      process.chdir(workDir);
+    });
+
+    afterEach(() => {
+      process.chdir(originalCwd);
+      homedirSpy.mockRestore();
+      rmSync(home, { recursive: true, force: true });
+      rmSync(workDir, { recursive: true, force: true });
+    });
+
+    test('returns the path for a name without .md', () => {
+      const file = writePlan(workDir, 'saved.md');
+      expect(Plan.resolveFile('saved')).toBe(file);
+    });
+
+    test('returns null for a missing name', () => {
+      expect(Plan.resolveFile('missing')).toBeNull();
+    });
+  });
 });