diff --git a/.github/workflows/quarterly-doc-audit.yml b/.github/workflows/quarterly-doc-audit.yml
index 7a192896..4a3622a5 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/quarterly-doc-audit.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/quarterly-doc-audit.yml
@@ -52,9 +52,13 @@ jobs:
               | grep tag_name | head -1 | cut -d'"' -f4 | sed 's/^v//')
             OS=$(uname -s | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')
             ARCH=$(uname -m | sed 's/x86_64/amd64/;s/aarch64/arm64/')
-            curl -fsSL "https://github.com/nself-org/cli/releases/download/v${LATEST}/nself-${LATEST}-${OS}-${ARCH}.tar.gz" \
-              | tar -xz -C /tmp
-            sudo mv /tmp/nself /usr/local/bin/nself
+            if curl -fsSL "https://github.com/nself-org/cli/releases/download/v${LATEST}/nself-${LATEST}-${OS}-${ARCH}.tar.gz" \
+              | tar -xz -C /tmp --strip-components=1; then
+              # release tarballs nest a nself-<ver>-<os>-<arch>/ dir — strip it
+              sudo mv /tmp/nself /usr/local/bin/nself
+            else
+              echo "::warning::nself release download/extract failed — audit tool unavailable, skipping"
+            fi
           fi
           nself --version || true