diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 42ee5a122..7b5ac9a67 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -55,6 +55,8 @@ Suggests:
     testthat (>= 3.1.8)
 Config/Needs/website: tidyverse/tidytemplate, xml2
 Config/testthat/edition: 3
+Config/testthat/parallel: TRUE
+Config/testthat/start-first: github-actions, release
 Encoding: UTF-8
 Language: en-US
 Roxygen: list(markdown = TRUE)
diff --git a/NAMESPACE b/NAMESPACE
index 14daa906d..b6bcb9a93 100644
--- a/NAMESPACE
+++ b/NAMESPACE
@@ -221,3 +221,4 @@ importFrom(purrr,map)
 importFrom(purrr,map_chr)
 importFrom(purrr,map_int)
 importFrom(purrr,map_lgl)
+importFrom(utils,available.packages)
diff --git a/R/release.R b/R/release.R
index 7bff3ed56..61302d6de 100644
--- a/R/release.R
+++ b/R/release.R
@@ -412,7 +412,7 @@ cran_version <- function(package = project_name(), available = NULL) {
   if (is.null(available)) {
     # Guard against CRAN mirror being unset
     available <- tryCatch(
-      utils::available.packages(repos = default_cran_mirror()),
+      available.packages(repos = default_cran_mirror()),
       error = function(e) NULL
     )
     if (is.null(available)) {
diff --git a/R/usethis-package.R b/R/usethis-package.R
index 082017ade..fd1b8bb99 100644
--- a/R/usethis-package.R
+++ b/R/usethis-package.R
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@
 #' @importFrom glue glue glue_collapse glue_data
 #' @importFrom lifecycle deprecated
 #' @importFrom purrr map map_chr map_lgl map_int
+#' @importFrom utils available.packages
 ## usethis namespace: end
 NULL
 
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-release.R b/tests/testthat/test-release.R
index dabdddba3..d9644ada1 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-release.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-release.R
@@ -29,6 +29,8 @@ test_that("non-patch + lifecycle = advanced deprecation process", {
   create_local_package()
   use_package("lifecycle")
 
+  local_mocked_bindings(tidy_minimum_r_version = function() "3.6")
+
   has_deprecation <- function(x) any(grepl("deprecation processes", x))
   expect_true(has_deprecation(release_checklist("1.0.0", on_cran = TRUE)))
   expect_true(has_deprecation(release_checklist("1.1.0", on_cran = TRUE)))
@@ -200,54 +202,28 @@ test_that("get_release_data() works for new-style CRAN-RELEASE", {
   expect_equal(path_file(res$file), "CRAN-SUBMISSION")
 })
 
-test_that("cran_version() is robust to unset CRAN mirror with unreleased pkg (#1857)", {
-  skip_if_offline()
-  # we don't want this to be the name of a package someone actually releases on CRAN
-  pkg <- "foofy.asdf123"
-
-  withr::with_options(
-    list(repos = c(CRAN = "https://cloud.r-project.org")),
-    expect_null(cran_version(pkg))
-  )
-
-  withr::with_options(
-    list(repos = c(CRAN = "@CRAN@")),
-    expect_null(cran_version(pkg))
-  )
-
-  withr::with_options(
-    list(repos = c(CRAN = NA)),
-    expect_null(cran_version(pkg))
-  )
+test_that("cran_version() returns package version if package found", {
+  local_mocked_bindings(available.packages = function(...) {
+    # simulate minimal available.packages entry
+    as.matrix(data.frame(Package = c(usethis = "usethis"), Version = "1.0.0"))
+  })
 
-  withr::with_options(
-    list(repos = NULL),
-    expect_null(cran_version(pkg))
-  )
+  expect_null(cran_version("doesntexist"))
+  expect_equal(cran_version("usethis"), package_version("1.0.0"))
 })
 
-test_that("cran_version() is robust to unset CRAN mirror with released pkg (#1857)", {
-  skip_if_offline()
-  pkg <- "usethis"
-
-  withr::with_options(
-    list(repos = c(CRAN = "https://cloud.r-project.org")),
-    expect_s3_class(cran_version(pkg), "package_version")
-  )
+test_that("cran_version() returns NULL if no available packages", {
+  local_mocked_bindings(available.packages = function(...) NULL)
+  expect_null(cran_version("doesntexist"))
+})
 
-  withr::with_options(
-    list(repos = c(CRAN = "@CRAN@")),
-    expect_s3_class(cran_version(pkg), "package_version")
-  )
+test_that("default_cran_mirror() is respects set value but falls back to cloud", {
+  withr::local_options(repos = c(CRAN = "https://example.com"))
+  expect_equal(default_cran_mirror(), c(CRAN = "https://example.com"))
 
-  withr::with_options(
-    list(repos = c(CRAN = NA)),
-    expect_s3_class(cran_version(pkg), "package_version")
-  )
+  withr::local_options(repos = c(CRAN = "@CRAN@"))
+  expect_equal(default_cran_mirror(), c(CRAN = "https://cloud.r-project.org"))
 
-  withr::with_options(
-    list(repos = NULL),
-    expect_s3_class(cran_version(pkg), "package_version")
-  )
+  withr::local_options(repos = c())
+  expect_equal(default_cran_mirror(), c(CRAN = "https://cloud.r-project.org"))
 })
-