diff --git a/tests/notebooks/test_code_families_nb.py b/tests/notebooks/test_code_families_nb.py
index 4cbfa61..f995711 100644
--- a/tests/notebooks/test_code_families_nb.py
+++ b/tests/notebooks/test_code_families_nb.py
@@ -8,8 +8,17 @@ import re
 from pathlib import Path
 
 import marimo as mo
+import pytest
 
 NB = Path(__file__).resolve().parents[2] / "notebooks" / "code_families.py"
+_ROOT = Path(__file__).resolve().parents[2]
+#: The two live tests run the whole notebook against the real replica and
+#: bibliography (data symlinks in a checkout); CI has neither, so they skip
+#: there — the headless-degrade test above covers the no-data path.
+_HAS_DATA = (_ROOT / "data" / "replica" / "aco.ro.duckdb").exists() and (
+    _ROOT / "data" / "bib.sqlite"
+).exists()
+_live = pytest.mark.skipif(not _HAS_DATA, reason="needs the live replica and bib")
 
 
 def _load():
@@ -65,6 +74,7 @@ def _tables_in(obj):
     return found
 
 
+@_live
 def test_section5_tolerates_missing_llm_db_password(monkeypatch):
     """Section 5's pgvector chunk-count lookup must degrade to a note,
     never raise, when LLM_DB_PASSWORD is unset — the bib item-tag counts
@@ -92,6 +102,7 @@ def test_section5_tolerates_missing_llm_db_password(monkeypatch):
     assert rows.get("family:CCM", 0) > 0
 
 
+@_live
 def test_section_7b_tolerates_missing_llm_deps(monkeypatch):
     """#720: the notebooks container installs the workspace without the
     ``llm`` extra. When ``llm.lineage`` cannot be imported, section 7b