diff --git a/crates/transcription/Cargo.toml b/crates/transcription/Cargo.toml
index 6500e48..f053e45 100644
--- a/crates/transcription/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/transcription/Cargo.toml
@@ -29,3 +29,8 @@ thiserror = "2"
 
 # Structured logging at backend boundaries (observability for initial_prompt flow).
 tracing = "0.1"
+
+[dev-dependencies]
+# TcpListener fixture for the download resume tests (mirrors kon-llm).
+tokio = { version = "1", features = ["rt", "sync", "net", "io-util", "macros"] }
+tempfile = "3"
diff --git a/crates/transcription/src/model_manager.rs b/crates/transcription/src/model_manager.rs
index 0d42c5d..4c59fb9 100644
--- a/crates/transcription/src/model_manager.rs
+++ b/crates/transcription/src/model_manager.rs
@@ -52,6 +52,11 @@ pub fn list_downloaded() -> Vec<ModelId> {
 
 /// Download all files for a model, calling the progress callback per chunk.
 /// Files are downloaded to a .part suffix and atomically renamed on completion.
+///
+/// For files that declare a `sha256` checksum we validate an existing
+/// complete file before skipping the download — a truncated or
+/// tampered file gets redownloaded automatically (pattern ported from
+/// `kon-llm`'s model_manager, item #8 in the Whisper ecosystem brief).
 pub async fn download(
     id: &ModelId,
     progress: impl Fn(DownloadProgress) + Send + 'static,
@@ -64,7 +69,29 @@ pub async fn download(
     for file in &entry.files {
         let dest = dir.join(file.filename);
         if dest.exists() {
-            continue;
+            if let Some(expected_sha) = file.sha256 {
+                // Validate the existing file. If the hash doesn't match,
+                // the file is corrupt (partial download, tampering, bit
+                // rot) and we must re-fetch it to avoid crashing on
+                // model load later.
+                match sha256_of_file(&dest) {
+                    Ok(actual) if actual.eq_ignore_ascii_case(expected_sha) => continue,
+                    Ok(_actual) => {
+                        // Corrupt — remove + fall through to re-download.
+                        let _ = std::fs::remove_file(&dest);
+                    }
+                    Err(e) => {
+                        return Err(KonError::DownloadFailed(format!(
+                            "failed to verify existing {}: {e}",
+                            file.filename
+                        )));
+                    }
+                }
+            } else {
+                // No checksum — honour the existing file as-is; the
+                // engine will barf on load if it's broken.
+                continue;
+            }
         }
         download_file(file, &dest, id, &progress).await?;
     }
@@ -72,6 +99,24 @@ pub async fn download(
     Ok(())
 }
 
+/// Non-streaming SHA256 of a file on disk. Used by `download()` to
+/// validate an existing complete file before trusting it.
+fn sha256_of_file(path: &Path) -> std::io::Result<String> {
+    use sha2::{Digest, Sha256};
+
+    let mut hasher = Sha256::new();
+    let mut file = std::fs::File::open(path)?;
+    let mut buffer = [0u8; 8192];
+    loop {
+        let n = std::io::Read::read(&mut file, &mut buffer)?;
+        if n == 0 {
+            break;
+        }
+        hasher.update(&buffer[..n]);
+    }
+    Ok(format!("{:x}", hasher.finalize()))
+}
+
 /// Download a single file with HTTP Range resume and optional SHA256 verification.
 ///
 /// Resume pattern from Buzz (chidiwilliams/buzz): if a .part file exists,
@@ -118,8 +163,28 @@ async fn download_file(
         .await
         .map_err(|e| KonError::DownloadFailed(e.to_string()))?;
 
-    // Check if server supports range (206 Partial Content) or gave full file (200)
-    let actually_resuming = resuming && response.status().as_u16() == 206;
+    // If we requested Range but the server returned 200 (full file), the
+    // server does not support resume. Rather than blindly appending a
+    // full file on top of our partial bytes (which would produce a
+    // corrupt result), restart cleanly. This mirrors the kon-llm
+    // ResumeUnsupported branch — item #8 of the brief.
+    let actually_resuming = if resuming {
+        match response.status().as_u16() {
+            206 => true,
+            200 => {
+                // Server ignored our Range header — treat as fresh start.
+                // The old .part bytes are discarded below.
+                false
+            }
+            other => {
+                return Err(KonError::DownloadFailed(format!(
+                    "resume request returned unexpected status {other}"
+                )));
+            }
+        }
+    } else {
+        false
+    };
 
     let total_bytes = if actually_resuming {
         // Content-Range: bytes START-END/TOTAL — extract TOTAL
@@ -202,6 +267,10 @@ async fn download_file(
 #[cfg(test)]
 mod tests {
     use super::*;
+    use sha2::Digest;
+    use tempfile::tempdir;
+    use tokio::io::{AsyncReadExt, AsyncWriteExt};
+    use tokio::net::TcpListener;
 
     #[test]
     fn model_dir_returns_correct_path() {
@@ -223,4 +292,124 @@ mod tests {
         // This just verifies the function doesn't panic
         assert!(list.len() <= kon_core::model_registry::all_models().len());
     }
+
+    #[test]
+    fn sha256_of_file_matches_sha2() {
+        let dir = tempdir().unwrap();
+        let path = dir.path().join("f.bin");
+        std::fs::write(&path, b"hello world").unwrap();
+        let expected = format!("{:x}", sha2::Sha256::digest(b"hello world"));
+        assert_eq!(sha256_of_file(&path).unwrap(), expected);
+    }
+
+    /// A minimal HTTP server that sends a Range response when a Range
+    /// header is present and otherwise sends the full body. Ported from
+    /// crates/llm/src/model_manager.rs to give the transcription
+    /// download stack the same fixture-backed coverage.
+    async fn spawn_range_server(content: Vec<u8>) -> std::net::SocketAddr {
+        let listener = TcpListener::bind("127.0.0.1:0").await.unwrap();
+        let addr = listener.local_addr().unwrap();
+
+        tokio::spawn(async move {
+            let (mut socket, _) = listener.accept().await.unwrap();
+            let mut buf = vec![0u8; 2048];
+            let size = socket.read(&mut buf).await.unwrap();
+            let request = String::from_utf8_lossy(&buf[..size]).to_lowercase();
+            let range_start = request
+                .lines()
+                .find_map(|line| line.strip_prefix("range: bytes="))
+                .and_then(|line| line.strip_suffix('-'))
+                .and_then(|line| line.trim().parse::<usize>().ok());
+
+            if let Some(start) = range_start {
+                let body = &content[start..];
+                let response = format!(
+                    "HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content\r\n\
+                     Content-Length: {}\r\n\
+                     Content-Range: bytes {}-{}/{}\r\n\
+                     Accept-Ranges: bytes\r\n\r\n",
+                    body.len(),
+                    start,
+                    content.len() - 1,
+                    content.len(),
+                );
+                socket.write_all(response.as_bytes()).await.unwrap();
+                socket.write_all(body).await.unwrap();
+            } else {
+                let response = format!(
+                    "HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\n\
+                     Content-Length: {}\r\n\
+                     Accept-Ranges: bytes\r\n\r\n",
+                    content.len(),
+                );
+                socket.write_all(response.as_bytes()).await.unwrap();
+                socket.write_all(&content).await.unwrap();
+            }
+        });
+
+        addr
+    }
+
+    /// ModelFile stores `&'static str` fields, so we leak the strings
+    /// once per test — tests are one-shot, so the cost is noise.
+    fn leak(s: String) -> &'static str {
+        Box::leak(s.into_boxed_str())
+    }
+
+    #[tokio::test]
+    async fn download_file_resumes_from_partial_and_verifies_sha() {
+        let body = b"resumable transcription payload".to_vec();
+        let expected_sha = format!("{:x}", sha2::Sha256::digest(&body));
+        let addr = spawn_range_server(body.clone()).await;
+
+        let dir = tempdir().unwrap();
+        let dest = dir.path().join("fixture.bin");
+        let part = dest.with_extension("bin.part");
+        // Pretend we already downloaded the first 7 bytes.
+        std::fs::write(&part, &body[..7]).unwrap();
+
+        let file = ModelFile {
+            filename: leak(dest.file_name().unwrap().to_string_lossy().into_owned()),
+            url: leak(format!("http://{addr}/fixture.bin")),
+            size: kon_core::types::Megabytes(0),
+            sha256: None, // resume path only kicks in when sha256 is absent
+        };
+        let id = ModelId::new("test-fixture");
+
+        download_file(&file, &dest, &id, &|_| ()).await.unwrap();
+
+        let bytes = std::fs::read(&dest).unwrap();
+        assert_eq!(bytes, body);
+        assert!(!part.exists());
+        // Confirm the full file hash matches what we would have got via
+        // a clean download — gives the resume path indirect integrity
+        // coverage even when the ModelFile has no sha256 set.
+        assert_eq!(sha256_of_file(&dest).unwrap(), expected_sha);
+    }
+
+    #[tokio::test]
+    async fn download_file_fails_on_sha_mismatch_and_cleans_part_file() {
+        let body = b"speech-to-text fixture body".to_vec();
+        let addr = spawn_range_server(body.clone()).await;
+
+        let dir = tempdir().unwrap();
+        let dest = dir.path().join("fixture.bin");
+
+        let file = ModelFile {
+            filename: leak(dest.file_name().unwrap().to_string_lossy().into_owned()),
+            url: leak(format!("http://{addr}/fixture.bin")),
+            size: kon_core::types::Megabytes(0),
+            sha256: Some(leak("deadbeef".repeat(8))),
+        };
+        let id = ModelId::new("test-fixture");
+
+        let err = download_file(&file, &dest, &id, &|_| ())
+            .await
+            .expect_err("mismatched sha must fail");
+        let msg = err.to_string();
+        assert!(msg.contains("SHA256 mismatch"), "unexpected error: {msg}");
+        assert!(!dest.exists(), ".part → dest rename must not run on mismatch");
+        let part = dest.with_extension("bin.part");
+        assert!(!part.exists(), "failed hash must clean up the .part file");
+    }
 }