diff --git a/docs/development/agent-workflow.md b/docs/development/agent-workflow.md
index 887fe102e..9ca91b9b4 100644
--- a/docs/development/agent-workflow.md
+++ b/docs/development/agent-workflow.md
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ Write generic filenames as prose; commands, templates, globs, URLs, package
 aliases and dotted code symbols are excluded. Bare dotted names with conventional
 file suffixes (such as .md, .json or .ts) are treated as filenames. Use a `./`
 prefix or Markdown link for other ambiguous filenames that resemble code symbols.
-Explicit relative literals denote paths, including spaces and hyphenated words.
+Explicit relative literals denote paths, including spaces, filesystem punctuation and hyphenated words.
 Put executable command examples in fenced code when their syntax also looks like a path.
 Multi-part dotfiles are path candidates too.
 Conventional extensionless filenames such as Dockerfile, Makefile and LICENSE
@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ removed before matching a declared package, as are straight/curly apostrophe pos
 Markdown destinations decode HTML entities before URI parsing, matching rendered links.
 Heading-anchor lookup is limited to Markdown targets. Source-file line fragments,
 PDF page fragments and other non-Markdown fragments retain file-existence checks.
-The import scan includes visible HTML text and excludes code and non-rendered containers.
+The import scan includes visible HTML text and literal backticks; it excludes parsed code nodes and non-rendered containers.
 Navigation uses the parsed rendered tree too. Temporary in-memory markers retain
 definition, unresolved-reference and literal-path metadata, so Markdown inside
 inert templates is excluded consistently with raw HTML navigation.
diff --git a/tools/skills/agent-guidance-markdown.mjs b/tools/skills/agent-guidance-markdown.mjs
index 089b0ba53..40e8da99a 100644
--- a/tools/skills/agent-guidance-markdown.mjs
+++ b/tools/skills/agent-guidance-markdown.mjs
@@ -179,13 +179,7 @@ function isLiteralRepositoryPath(token) {
     // Exclude recognizable prose/code forms instead of allowlisting paths.
     if (/^(?:@|--|[a-z][a-z\d+.-]*:|\/\/)/iu.test(token)) return false;
     const explicitRelative = /^(?:\.\/|\.\.\/)/u.test(token);
-    if (
-        (explicitRelative
-            ? /[^\p{L}\p{N}_./# -]/u
-            : /[^\p{L}\p{N}_./#-]/u
-        ).test(token)
-    )
-        return false;
+    if (!explicitRelative && /[^\p{L}\p{N}_./#-]/u.test(token)) return false;
     if (token.includes('YYYY-MM-DD') || /(?:^|\/)\.\.\.(?:\/|$)/u.test(token))
         return false;
     const path = token.split('#')[0];
diff --git a/tools/skills/validate-agent-guidance.mjs b/tools/skills/validate-agent-guidance.mjs
index 7345e885a..db88f64c8 100644
--- a/tools/skills/validate-agent-guidance.mjs
+++ b/tools/skills/validate-agent-guidance.mjs
@@ -167,9 +167,8 @@ export async function validateAgentGuidance({ rootDir }) {
                 diagnostics.push(
                     `${source}: at most ${maxBytes} UTF-8 bytes allowed (received ${bytes})`
                 );
-            const unfenced = guidanceProse(markdown);
+            const prose = guidanceProse(markdown);
             const imports = guidanceStandaloneImports(markdown);
-            const prose = unfenced.replace(/`[^`\n]+`/gu, '');
             const inlineImports = [];
             for (const match of prose.matchAll(
                 /(?:^|[^\p{L}\p{N}_@])@([^\s]+)/gu
diff --git a/tools/skills/validate-agent-guidance.test.mjs b/tools/skills/validate-agent-guidance.test.mjs
index 3632d1926..9476b057a 100644
--- a/tools/skills/validate-agent-guidance.test.mjs
+++ b/tools/skills/validate-agent-guidance.test.mjs
@@ -1031,3 +1031,32 @@ test('ordinary unknown handle is not a file import', async (t) => {
         []
     );
 });
+
+for (const wrapper of ['\\`', '`']) {
+    test(`visible literal backticks preserve imports: ${wrapper}`, async (t) => {
+        const result = await diagnostics(t, {
+            'CLAUDE.md':
+                '@AGENTS.md\n\nRead ' + wrapper + '@docs/example.md' + wrapper,
+        });
+        assert.ok(
+            result.some((message) => message.includes('additional or inline'))
+        );
+    });
+}
+for (const filename of [
+    'Guide (old).md',
+    "Author's guide.md",
+    'Guide [draft].md',
+]) {
+    test(`explicit path punctuation is validated: ${filename}`, async (t) => {
+        const guidance = '`./docs/' + filename + '`';
+        assert.deepEqual(
+            await diagnostics(t, {
+                'AGENTS.md': guidance,
+                ['docs/' + filename]: '# Guide',
+            }),
+            []
+        );
+        assert.ok((await diagnostics(t, { 'AGENTS.md': guidance })).length > 0);
+    });
+}