diff --git a/pageserver/src/http/routes.rs b/pageserver/src/http/routes.rs
index 759a1b25ee..47d8ae1148 100644
--- a/pageserver/src/http/routes.rs
+++ b/pageserver/src/http/routes.rs
@@ -993,11 +993,26 @@ async fn tenant_status(
     check_permission(&request, Some(tenant_shard_id.tenant_id))?;
     let state = get_state(&request);
 
+    // In tests, sometimes we want to query the state of a tenant without auto-activating it if it's currently waiting.
+    let activate = true;
+    #[cfg(feature = "testing")]
+    let activate = parse_query_param(&request, "activate")?.unwrap_or(activate);
+
     let tenant_info = async {
         let tenant = state
             .tenant_manager
             .get_attached_tenant_shard(tenant_shard_id)?;
 
+        if activate {
+            // This is advisory: we prefer to let the tenant activate on-demand when this function is
+            // called, but it is still valid to return 200 and describe the current state of the tenant
+            // if it doesn't make it into an active state.
+            tenant
+                .wait_to_become_active(ACTIVE_TENANT_TIMEOUT)
+                .await
+                .ok();
+        }
+
         // Calculate total physical size of all timelines
         let mut current_physical_size = 0;
         for timeline in tenant.list_timelines().iter() {
diff --git a/test_runner/fixtures/pageserver/http.py b/test_runner/fixtures/pageserver/http.py
index 6aebfbc99c..d3bf46b2e8 100644
--- a/test_runner/fixtures/pageserver/http.py
+++ b/test_runner/fixtures/pageserver/http.py
@@ -341,8 +341,21 @@ class PageserverHttpClient(requests.Session, MetricsGetter):
         res = self.post(f"http://localhost:{self.port}/v1/tenant/{tenant_id}/ignore")
         self.verbose_error(res)
 
-    def tenant_status(self, tenant_id: Union[TenantId, TenantShardId]) -> Dict[Any, Any]:
-        res = self.get(f"http://localhost:{self.port}/v1/tenant/{tenant_id}")
+    def tenant_status(
+        self, tenant_id: Union[TenantId, TenantShardId], activate: bool = False
+    ) -> Dict[Any, Any]:
+        """
+        :activate: hint the server not to accelerate activation of this tenant in response
+        to this query.  False by default for tests, because they generally want to observed the
+        system rather than interfering with it.  This is true  by default on the server side,
+        because in the field if the control plane is GET'ing a tenant it's a sign that it wants
+        to do something with it.
+        """
+        params = {}
+        if not activate:
+            params["activate"] = "false"
+
+        res = self.get(f"http://localhost:{self.port}/v1/tenant/{tenant_id}", params=params)
         self.verbose_error(res)
         res_json = res.json()
         assert isinstance(res_json, dict)