diff --git a/scripts/audiobookshelf-init.sh b/scripts/audiobookshelf-init.sh
index f4ac4c1..5d81f78 100755
--- a/scripts/audiobookshelf-init.sh
+++ b/scripts/audiobookshelf-init.sh
@@ -268,8 +268,10 @@ else:
         # not auto-launch: the login page keeps offering the local form, which is the
         # break-glass path when the IdP is unreachable.
         "authOpenIDAutoLaunch": False,
-        # a household user's first SSO sign-in creates their account; the group claim
-        # decides the role, and a user in neither group is denied (fail closed).
+        # a household user's first SSO sign-in creates their account. The role comes from
+        # the abs_groups claim, which grants the listener role to every signer; only the
+        # authentik admin group escalates. Revoking a listener therefore happens HERE in
+        # ABS (disable or delete the user), never by removing an IdP group membership.
         "authOpenIDAutoRegister": True,
         "authOpenIDGroupClaim": "abs_groups",
         # The app's own scheme lives HERE, never in the IdP: ABS swaps it for
diff --git a/scripts/authentik-audiobookshelf-sso.sh b/scripts/authentik-audiobookshelf-sso.sh
index d7b73de..e163b50 100755
--- a/scripts/authentik-audiobookshelf-sso.sh
+++ b/scripts/authentik-audiobookshelf-sso.sh
@@ -70,9 +70,12 @@
 #   ABS_OIDC_CLIENT_ID      provider/client id           (audiobookshelf)
 #   ABS_OIDC_GROUPS_CLAIM   claim ABS reads for roles    (abs_groups)
 #   ABS_OIDC_USERNAME       authentik user made admin    (akadmin)
-#   ABS_OIDC_USERS          space-separated authentik usernames given the USER group
-#                           (default: nobody — an empty list is fail-closed, and the
-#                            household decides who listens to audiobooks)
+#   There is deliberately NO user list. The claim grants the LISTENER role to every
+#   authentik account that signs in (2026-11-03), so onboarding a listener is exactly
+#   "create the authentik account". Before this, a household account authenticated at
+#   the IdP and was then refused by ABS for being in no group — a policy decision that
+#   read as a broken login. Revocation lives on the ABS side (disable or delete the
+#   user there): a group can no longer withhold a role the claim always sends.
 #   ABS_E2E_ADMIN           authentik user kept in the ADMIN group for the Playwright gate
 #                           (qa-e2e-admin — tests/e2e/specs/23-audiobookshelf-sso.spec.ts
 #                            signs in as this identity, so a re-run restores the fixture)
@@ -97,53 +100,67 @@ SECRET="${ABS_OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET:?set ABS_OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET (see the header)}"
 CLIENT_ID="${ABS_OIDC_CLIENT_ID:-audiobookshelf}"
 CLAIM="${ABS_OIDC_GROUPS_CLAIM:-abs_groups}"
 ADMIN_GROUP="audiobookshelf_admins"
-USER_GROUP="audiobookshelf_users"
 SSO_USER="${ABS_OIDC_USERNAME:-akadmin}"
-MEMBERS="${ABS_OIDC_USERS:-}"
 E2E_ADMIN="${ABS_E2E_ADMIN:-qa-e2e-admin}"
 BASE="${ABS_BASE:-http://192.168.0.235:8000/audiobookshelf}"
 EXTRA_BASES="${ABS_EXTRA_BASES:-https://audiobooks.franksdank.cloud/audiobookshelf}"
 HOST="${AUTHENTIK_HOST:-dankclaw}"
 
-# The claim expression: translate group membership into ABS role names. It is stored
-# verbatim so a later read of the provider shows exactly this policy.
+# The claim expression: every signer is a listener; only the admin group escalates.
+# Stored verbatim so a later read of the provider shows exactly this policy. The default
+# lives HERE and nowhere else — ABS reads this list off the token, so an account in no
+# Audiobookshelf group still arrives with ["user"] and is auto-registered as a listener
+# instead of being refused after a successful authentication.
 read -r -d '' EXPR <<PYEXPR || true
 groups = {g.name for g in user.groups.all()}
+# Order is deliberate: an admin's claim comes out ["admin","user"], byte-identical to what
+# this mapping emitted before the default existed, because ABS's group-tag matching has never
+# been measured for order-sensitivity and the working admin login is not the place to find out.
 roles = []
 if "$ADMIN_GROUP" in groups:
     roles.append("admin")
-if groups & {"$ADMIN_GROUP", "$USER_GROUP"}:
-    roles.append("user")
+roles.append("user")
 return {"$CLAIM": roles}
 PYEXPR
 
+# NOTE: the heredoc below is UNQUOTED on purpose — its body interpolates the variables
+# above. The consequence is that a backtick anywhere in that python body is a LOCAL command
+# substitution whose output is spliced into the program before it ever runs, and comments
+# are not exempt, because bash does not know what a python comment is. Write names plainly
+# in the body: measured 2026-11-03, two comments in this body had the shell run
+# audiobookshelf_users and user as commands on every execution of this script.
 ssh "$HOST" 'podman exec -i authentik-server ak shell' <<PYEOF
 from authentik.core.models import Application, Group, User
 from authentik.flows.models import Flow
 from authentik.providers.oauth2.models import (
     ClientType, OAuth2Provider, RedirectURI, RedirectURIMatchingMode, RedirectURIType, ScopeMapping)
 
-ADMIN_GROUP, USER_GROUP = "$ADMIN_GROUP", "$USER_GROUP"
+ADMIN_GROUP = "$ADMIN_GROUP"
 CLAIM, CLIENT_ID, SECRET, BASE = "$CLAIM", "$CLIENT_ID", "$SECRET", "$BASE"
 BASES = [BASE] + """$EXTRA_BASES""".split()
 SSO_USER, E2E_ADMIN = "$SSO_USER", "$E2E_ADMIN"
-MEMBERS = """$MEMBERS""".split()
 EXPR = '''$EXPR'''
 # The expression reads user.groups, NOT user.ak_groups: authentik 2026.8 logs
 # "User.ak_groups is deprecated … use User.groups" on every evaluation of the old
 # name (measured on this run), and a stored mapping that leans on a deprecated
 # accessor is a future upgrade failure sitting inside the login path.
 
-for name in (ADMIN_GROUP, USER_GROUP):
-    Group.objects.get_or_create(name=name)
-admin_g, user_g = Group.objects.get(name=ADMIN_GROUP), Group.objects.get(name=USER_GROUP)
+Group.objects.get_or_create(name=ADMIN_GROUP)
+admin_g = Group.objects.get(name=ADMIN_GROUP)
+# The audiobookshelf_users group is retired. Its membership used to be the only door to the
+# listener role; the claim now sends that role to every signer, so the group decides
+# nothing — and a group that decides nothing is a trap for the next reader, who will
+# assume it gates something and start adding people to it.
+for stale in Group.objects.filter(name="audiobookshelf_users"):
+    stale.delete()
+    print("group: retired audiobookshelf_users (the claim grants every signer)")
 
 # --- the claim mapping (scope_name IS the claim name ABS requests) ---------------
 mapping = ScopeMapping.objects.filter(name="audiobookshelf-groups").first()
 if mapping is None:
     mapping = ScopeMapping.objects.create(name="audiobookshelf-groups", scope_name=CLAIM,
                                           expression=EXPR,
-                                          description="Audiobookshelf role names from group membership")
+                                          description="Audiobookshelf roles: every signer is a listener, the admin group escalates")
     print("mapping: created (scope_name %s)" % CLAIM)
 elif mapping.scope_name != CLAIM or mapping.expression != EXPR:
     mapping.scope_name, mapping.expression = CLAIM, EXPR
@@ -153,7 +170,7 @@ else:
     print("mapping: already current")
 
 # Prove the expression runs and yields an ABS role BEFORE anyone tries to log in:
-# authentik execs the expression inside a function whose context has `user`.
+# authentik execs the expression inside a function whose context has the name "user".
 _src = "def _probe(user, request=None):\n" + "".join("    %s\n" % ln for ln in EXPR.splitlines())
 _ns = {}
 exec(_src, _ns)
@@ -240,13 +257,26 @@ else:
     e2e.groups.add(admin_g)
     print("e2e fixture: %s in %s" % (E2E_ADMIN, ADMIN_GROUP))
 print("admin: %s in %s" % (SSO_USER, ADMIN_GROUP))
-for name in MEMBERS:
-    u = User.objects.get(username=name)
-    u.groups.add(user_g)
-print("users: %s in %s" % (", ".join(MEMBERS) or "(none — fail closed)", USER_GROUP))
+# The default is printed at provision time, not merely asserted: an expression that regressed
+# to returning nothing for a non-member refuses every household login, and this is where a
+# re-run notices it. The population matters — authentik ships an AnonymousUser row, a
+# superuser, and ak-outpost-* service identities, and proving the default on one of those says
+# nothing about the friend who logs in. Prefer the fleet's plain-user marker group (owned by
+# serverAppConfigs-docs/Infrastructure/Authentik.md; a preference only, since that group
+# belongs to other consumers), which normally lands on qa-e2e — the identity the e2e gate
+# signs in as. is_superuser is a python property on authentik's User, not a queryable field.
+pool = User.objects.filter(is_active=True).exclude(groups__name__in=[ADMIN_GROUP])
+pool = pool.exclude(username__in=[root.username, E2E_ADMIN, "AnonymousUser"])
+pool = [u for u in pool.order_by("username")
+        if not u.is_superuser and not u.username.startswith("ak-outpost-")]
+household = [u for u in pool if any(g.name == "Non-Admin Users" for g in u.groups.all())]
+for u in (household or pool)[:3]:
+    print("default probe: %s %s -> %s" % (
+        u.username, sorted(g.name for g in u.groups.all()),
+        _ns["_probe"](user=u, request=None)))
 
 # --- verification: the claim the callback will actually receive ---------------------
-for probe in [root] + ([e2e] if e2e else []) + [User.objects.get(username=n) for n in MEMBERS]:
+for probe in [root] + ([e2e] if e2e else []):
     print("claim for %s -> %s" % (probe.username, _ns["_probe"](user=probe, request=None)))
 p.refresh_from_db()
 print("provider %s | client_id %s | flow %s | grants %s | uris %s" % (