diff --git a/global-settings/VERSION b/global-settings/VERSION
index 8e8299dc..79a61441 100644
--- a/global-settings/VERSION
+++ b/global-settings/VERSION
@@ -1 +1 @@
-2.4.2
+2.4.4
diff --git a/global-settings/block-write-commands.sh b/global-settings/block-write-commands.sh
index a0e3c31b..168d6cdc 100644
--- a/global-settings/block-write-commands.sh
+++ b/global-settings/block-write-commands.sh
@@ -90,7 +90,36 @@ fi
 # have NO canonical path — they are never allowed. The only permitted operation is a full
 # overwrite sourced from the canonical repo (enforced by the write guard below). This is a
 # HARD BLOCK regardless of source, because these operations cannot carry canonical content.
-if echo "$cmd" | grep -qE "\b(sed|perl|awk|gawk|ruby)\b[^|]*[[:space:]]-i\b[^|]*${_prot}" \
+#
+# Exactly ONE thing differs from the long-standing form: on the first arm, the gap
+# between the tool name and its -i flag is [^|;&]* instead of [^|]*. That closes a
+# false positive where the verb and the flag came from DIFFERENT commands in one
+# chain — `awk '{print}' f; grep -c -i x ~/.claude/hooks/y.sh` was hard-denied as an
+# "in-place edit" using awk from the first command and -i from the second. A `;` or
+# `&` can never legitimately sit between a command name and its own flag, so
+# narrowing there costs no coverage.
+#
+# Everything else is left exactly as it was, and both temptations to "tidy up" are
+# deliberately resisted:
+#
+#   1. Do NOT anchor the first two arms with `(^|[;&|]\s*)` to match the rm arm.
+#      A genuine verb is often not at a segment start: `  sed -i … ~/.claude/x`,
+#      `(sed -i … ~/.claude/x)`, `{ sed -i … ~/.claude/x; }`, `env sed -i …` and
+#      `if true; then sed -i …; fi` all stop matching, because `(`, `{` and a bare
+#      leading space are not separators.
+#
+#   2. Do NOT narrow the gap that precedes ${_prot} on any arm. This guard is plain
+#      text matching with no shell awareness, so it cannot tell a command separator
+#      from the same character inside a quoted argument. `sed -i "s/a/b/;s/c/d/"
+#      ~/.claude/settings.json` is an ordinary two-substitution sed script; with a
+#      narrowed gap it stops matching and — for perl/awk/truncate/unlink, which have
+#      no generic fallback rule — becomes a silent ALLOW of a real in-place edit.
+#
+# The residual false positives (`rm /tmp/junk; cat ~/.claude/settings-version`, and
+# `sed -i … /tmp/x; grep … ~/.claude/x`) are the price of that. They fail CLOSED — a
+# refused read, never an allowed write — and cannot be fixed at the regex level
+# without opening the fail-open hole above. Fixing them needs real shell parsing.
+if echo "$cmd" | grep -qE "\b(sed|perl|awk|gawk|ruby)\b[^|;&]*[[:space:]]-i\b[^|]*${_prot}" \
 || echo "$cmd" | grep -qE "\b(truncate|shred|unlink)\b[^|]*${_prot}" \
 || echo "$cmd" | grep -qE "(^|[;&|]\s*)rm\b[^|]*${_prot}"; then
     hard_deny "BLOCKED: in-place edits, truncation, or deletion of ~/.claude/ config files are not permitted. The only allowed operation is a full overwrite with canonical content from the configured source."
diff --git a/global-settings/tests/test-block-write-commands.sh b/global-settings/tests/test-block-write-commands.sh
index afa452cd..6c308e71 100644
--- a/global-settings/tests/test-block-write-commands.sh
+++ b/global-settings/tests/test-block-write-commands.sh
@@ -165,6 +165,68 @@ done
 add_allow "npm ci (lockfile-pinned)" "npm ci"
 add_allow "npm ci --ignore-scripts" "npm ci --ignore-scripts"
 
+# Destructive/in-place guard — the verb and its -i flag must come from the SAME
+# command. The gap between them used to be [^|]*, which stops at a pipe but spans
+# `;` and `&&`, so the guard could pair a verb from one command with a `-i` from
+# another and hard-deny a read-only inspection as an "in-place edit". The command
+# below only READS the protected path; `awk` and the `-i` belong to different
+# commands and neither touches it.
+FP_PROT_FILES=( "settings.json" "hooks/check-settings-version.sh" "settings-version" )
+for f in "${FP_PROT_FILES[@]}"; do
+    add_allow "verb/-i from different commands → $f" \
+      "awk '{print}' /tmp/x; grep -c -i needle \"\$HOME/.claude/${f}\""
+    # Controls: the narrowing must not let a genuine destructive op through,
+    # including one after a command-chain prefix (section 4 below never exercises
+    # the chained form for in-place mutators).
+    add_deny "control: chained sed -i → $f" \
+      "echo foo; sed -i 's/a/b/' \"\$HOME/.claude/${f}\""
+    add_deny "control: chained truncate → $f" \
+      "echo foo && truncate -s 0 \"\$HOME/.claude/${f}\""
+done
+
+# Separator characters inside a QUOTED ARGUMENT. This guard is plain text matching
+# with no shell awareness, so it cannot tell a real command separator from the same
+# character inside an argument. Narrowing the gap that precedes the protected path
+# would make every command below stop matching — and for perl/awk/truncate/unlink,
+# which have no generic fallback rule, that is a silent ALLOW of a real in-place
+# edit. `sed -i "s/a/b/;s/c/d/" <path>` is an ordinary two-substitution script, not
+# a contrived evasion. These must stay denied.
+for f in "${FP_PROT_FILES[@]}"; do
+    for wrap in \
+        "sed -i \"s/a/b/;s/c/d/\" PATH" \
+        "perl -i -pe 's/a/b/;s/c/d/' PATH" \
+        "gawk -i inplace '{a=1;print}' PATH" \
+        "sed -i 's/a/b/' \"x&&y\" PATH" \
+        "truncate -s 0 \"a;b\" PATH" \
+        "rm \"a;b\" PATH"; do
+        add_deny "separator inside a quoted arg: ${wrap%% PATH*}… → $f" \
+          "${wrap//PATH/\"\$HOME/.claude/${f}\"}"
+    done
+done
+
+# Non-segment-start destructive verbs. These are the shapes that a
+# `(^|[;&|]\s*)` anchor on the sed/perl/awk/gawk/ruby and truncate/shred/unlink
+# arms would silently stop matching, because `(`, `{`, a leading space and a
+# wrapper word are not command separators. The guard deliberately keeps a bare
+# \bverb\b match on those two arms for exactly this reason — every command below
+# genuinely mutates the protected path and must stay denied.
+for f in "${FP_PROT_FILES[@]}"; do
+    for wrap in \
+        "  sed -i 's/a/b/' PATH" \
+        "	sed -i 's/a/b/' PATH" \
+        "(sed -i 's/a/b/' PATH)" \
+        "{ sed -i 's/a/b/' PATH; }" \
+        "env sed -i 's/a/b/' PATH" \
+        "if true; then sed -i 's/a/b/' PATH; fi" \
+        "  truncate -s 0 PATH" \
+        "(truncate -s 0 PATH)" \
+        "{ unlink PATH; }" \
+        "env shred PATH"; do
+        add_deny "non-segment-start: ${wrap%% PATH*}… → $f" \
+          "${wrap//PATH/\"\$HOME/.claude/${f}\"}"
+    done
+done
+
 # ── DENY fixtures ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 # 1) Redirects: `>` and `>>` against every path variant.
 for op in '>' '>>'; do