diff --git a/tools/spec-validator/pyproject.toml b/tools/spec-validator/pyproject.toml
index 911768d5..d8b3dc86 100644
--- a/tools/spec-validator/pyproject.toml
+++ b/tools/spec-validator/pyproject.toml
@@ -46,6 +46,12 @@ ignore = ["E501"]
 [tool.ruff.lint.per-file-ignores]
 "tests/**" = ["B", "SIM"]
 
+[dependency-groups]
+dev = [
+  "pytest>=8.0",
+  "ruff>=0.4",
+]
+
 [tool.pytest.ini_options]
 minversion = "8.0"
 addopts = "-ra -q"
diff --git a/tools/spec-validator/src/spec_validator/__init__.py b/tools/spec-validator/src/spec_validator/__init__.py
index dd3b8d64..ad37adcb 100644
--- a/tools/spec-validator/src/spec_validator/__init__.py
+++ b/tools/spec-validator/src/spec_validator/__init__.py
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@
 
 Run from repo root::
 
-    uv run --project tools/spec-validator --group dev pytest
+    uv run --project tools/spec-validator --group dev pytest tools/spec-validator/tests/
     uv run --project tools/spec-validator spec-validate tools/spec-loop/specs/
 """
 
@@ -82,7 +82,7 @@
 _YAML_BLOCK_SCALAR_HEADERS: frozenset[str] = frozenset({"|", ">", "|-", "|+", ">-", ">+"})
 
 # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-# Validation-path check constants (check #8)
+# Validation-path check constants (check #9)
 # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 # Patterns that extract filesystem paths from shell validation commands.
diff --git a/uv.lock b/uv.lock
index dc5a4dd7..e02eb68c 100644
--- a/uv.lock
+++ b/uv.lock
@@ -803,6 +803,20 @@ name = "spec-validator"
 version = "0.1.0"
 source = { editable = "tools/spec-validator" }
 
+[package.dev-dependencies]
+dev = [
+    { name = "pytest" },
+    { name = "ruff" },
+]
+
+[package.metadata]
+
+[package.metadata.requires-dev]
+dev = [
+    { name = "pytest", specifier = ">=8.0" },
+    { name = "ruff", specifier = ">=0.4" },
+]
+
 [[package]]
 name = "typing-extensions"
 version = "4.15.0"