diff --git a/tests/app-template/babel.config.cjs b/tests/app-template/babel.config.cjs
index b5a817ba04..b6364b50a7 100644
--- a/tests/app-template/babel.config.cjs
+++ b/tests/app-template/babel.config.cjs
@@ -1,4 +1,16 @@
 // eslint-disable-next-line n/no-missing-require
-let config = require("./node_modules/.embroider/rewritten-app/_babel_config_");
+
+let config;
+
+// TODO - remove this once we have the better solution for injecting stage1 babel config into a real config file
+// this is needed because there are things (like ember-composible-helpers) that are now finding our babel config during
+// their stage1 build and historically they will never (99% of the time) have found any babel config.
+// we might need to keep something like this so that prebuild will never apply babel configs during stage1 i.e. a util
+// function that wraps your whole babel config
+if (process.env.EMBROIDER_PREBUILD) {
+  config = {};
+} else {
+  config = require("./node_modules/.embroider/rewritten-app/_babel_config_");
+}
 
 module.exports = config;
diff --git a/tests/ts-app-template/babel.config.cjs b/tests/ts-app-template/babel.config.cjs
index 010f4197f6..73559994de 100644
--- a/tests/ts-app-template/babel.config.cjs
+++ b/tests/ts-app-template/babel.config.cjs
@@ -1,6 +1,16 @@
 // eslint-disable-next-line n/no-missing-require
-let config = require('./node_modules/.embroider/rewritten-app/_babel_config_');
 
-debugger;
+let config;
+
+// TODO - remove this once we have the better solution for injecting stage1 babel config into a real config file
+// this is needed because there are things (like ember-composible-helpers) that are now finding our babel config during
+// their stage1 build and historically they will never (99% of the time) have found any babel config.
+// we might need to keep something like this so that prebuild will never apply babel configs during stage1 i.e. a util
+// function that wraps your whole babel config
+if (process.env.EMBROIDER_PREBUILD) {
+  config = {};
+} else {
+  config = require('./node_modules/.embroider/rewritten-app/_babel_config_');
+}
 
 module.exports = config;