diff --git a/packages/host/app/routes/render.ts b/packages/host/app/routes/render.ts
index b0d62af3d62..6973c3fc856 100644
--- a/packages/host/app/routes/render.ts
+++ b/packages/host/app/routes/render.ts
@@ -349,6 +349,16 @@ export default class RenderRoute extends Route<Model> {
         this.lastStoreResetKey = resetKey;
       }
     }
+    // Stamp `card-api` and `file-api` as runtime deps of this render.
+    // `file-api` is the public URL the indexer references when
+    // invalidating file extracts; doing the import here records the
+    // deps against the active tracking session without forcing
+    // matrix-service construction (which would also pull in the matrix
+    // SDK + client + event bindings the prerender never touches).
+    await Promise.all([
+      this.loaderService.loader.import(`${baseRealm.url}card-api`),
+      this.loaderService.loader.import(`${baseRealm.url}file-api`),
+    ]);
     if (parsedOptions.fileExtract) {
       let state = new TrackedMap<string, unknown>();
       state.set('status', 'ready');