diff --git a/playbooks/remove-autorestic.yaml b/playbooks/remove-autorestic.yaml
index 8545c2b..ed49d14 100644
--- a/playbooks/remove-autorestic.yaml
+++ b/playbooks/remove-autorestic.yaml
@@ -80,7 +80,11 @@ verify:
     changed_when: "false"
 
   - name: No autorestic binary on PATH
-    shell: ! command -v autorestic >/dev/null
+    # Quoted because YAML treats a leading `!` as a tag indicator —
+    # unquoted, the parser strips it and the verify ends up running
+    # `command -v autorestic` (exits non-zero when autorestic is gone,
+    # which is the OPPOSITE of what we want here).
+    shell: "! command -v autorestic >/dev/null"
     changed_when: "false"
 
   - name: systemd no longer knows about autorestic units