lib/PublicInbox/LeiQuery.pm | 6 +++++-

diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/LeiQuery.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/LeiQuery.pm
index 214267ee76ca87ebad553afc09724dd25ed170f8..743fa3f7b23600874f008ffdc9833273515529e9 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/LeiQuery.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/LeiQuery.pm
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ # handles lei <q|ls-query|rm-query|mv-query> commands
 package PublicInbox::LeiQuery;
 use strict;
 use v5.10.1;
+use POSIX ();
 
 sub prep_ext { # externals_each callback
 	my ($lxs, $exclude, $loc) = @_;
@@ -94,7 +95,10 @@ 	if (defined($mj) && $mj !~ /\A[1-9][0-9]*\z/) {
 		return $self->fail("`$mj' writer jobs must be >= 1");
 	}
 	PublicInbox::LeiOverview->new($self) or return;
-	$self->{l2m}->{-wq_nr_workers} = ($mj // $nproc) if $self->{l2m};
+	$self->{l2m} and $self->{l2m}->{-wq_nr_workers} = $mj // do {
+		$mj = POSIX::lround($nproc * 3 / 4); # keep some CPU for git
+		$mj <= 0 ? 1 : $mj;
+	};
 
 	my %mset_opt = map { $_ => $opt->{$_} } qw(threads limit offset);
 	$mset_opt{asc} = $opt->{'reverse'} ? 1 : 0;