diff --git a/.devcontainer/Dockerfile b/.devcontainer/Dockerfile
index 349e764..0f46540 100644
--- a/.devcontainer/Dockerfile
+++ b/.devcontainer/Dockerfile
@@ -15,11 +15,6 @@ RUN apt install -y \
     python3.10-venv \
     vim
 
-# the mkdir command bypasses a profiler error, which allows us to run it with
-# host code only to at least check that the profiler parameters are correctly
-# provided; without this line, some tests will fail
-RUN mkdir -p /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/nsight-compute/sections
-
 # we create the virtualenv here so that the devcontainer.json setting
 # python.defaultInterpreterPath can be used to find it; if we do it in the
 # post_create.sh script, the virtualenv will not be loaded and features like
diff --git a/tests/fixtures/fixtures.py b/tests/fixtures/fixtures.py
index a1d4e17..6e50541 100644
--- a/tests/fixtures/fixtures.py
+++ b/tests/fixtures/fixtures.py
@@ -27,6 +27,11 @@ def fixtures_path(tests_path):
     return os.path.join(tests_path, "fixtures")
 
 
+@pytest.fixture(scope="session")
+def scripts_path(fixtures_path: str):
+    return os.path.join(fixtures_path, "scripts")
+
+
 @pytest.fixture(scope="session")
 def compiler_cpp_17_fpath(fixtures_path: str):
     return os.path.join(fixtures_path, "compiler", "cpp_17.cu")
diff --git a/tests/fixtures/scripts/ncu b/tests/fixtures/scripts/ncu
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..4d059e5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/fixtures/scripts/ncu
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+# this is a mock of nsight compute cli tool that just executes the program
+# given as the last argument
+"${@: -1}"
+
+echo "==WARNING== No kernels were profiled"
diff --git a/tests/test_plugin.py b/tests/test_plugin.py
index 674392d..7448adc 100644
--- a/tests/test_plugin.py
+++ b/tests/test_plugin.py
@@ -37,6 +37,11 @@ def copy_source_to_group(
     return destination_fpath
 
 
+@pytest.fixture(autouse=True, scope="session")
+def before_all(scripts_path: str):
+    os.environ["PATH"] = scripts_path + os.pathsep + os.environ["PATH"]
+
+
 @pytest.fixture(autouse=True, scope="function")
 def before_each(plugin: NVCCPlugin):
     shutil.rmtree(plugin.workdir, ignore_errors=True)  # before test