diff --git a/run_agent.py b/run_agent.py
index 6c35dbbcf2594..e92f335c87cfb 100644
--- a/run_agent.py
+++ b/run_agent.py
@@ -189,6 +189,36 @@ from agent.trajectory import (
     convert_scratchpad_to_think, has_incomplete_scratchpad,
     save_trajectory as _save_trajectory_to_file,
 )
+
+# Trivial user-input pattern — used by run_conversation() to gate
+# memory-provider prefetch on short, semantically-empty queries.
+# Covers greetings, acknowledgements, and trailing-punctuation variants
+# (e.g. "hi!", "hey.", "thanks :)").
+_RE_TRIVIAL_USER_QUERY = re.compile(
+    r'^(yes|no|ok|okay|sure|thanks|thank you|y|n|yep|nope|yeah|nah|'
+    r'hi|hey|hello|yo|sup|'
+    r'continue|go ahead|do it|proceed|got it|cool|nice|great|done|next|lgtm|k)'
+    r'[\s!?.:;,"' + "'" + r'~\u2018\u2019\u201c\u201d\u2014\u2013\u2026()\[\]{}<>*&^%$#@!+=`\u00a0]*$',
+    re.IGNORECASE,
+)
+
+
+def _is_trivial_user_query(query: str) -> bool:
+    """Return True if the query is a greeting or too trivial to warrant prefetch.
+
+    Strips leading/trailing whitespace first, then checks against
+    _RE_TRIVIAL_USER_QUERY which permits common trailing punctuation
+    (exclamation, question mark, emoji, etc.) so variants like "hi!",
+    "hey.", and "thanks :)" register as trivial.
+    """
+    if not query:
+        return True
+    stripped = query.strip()
+    if not stripped:
+        return True
+    if stripped.startswith("/"):
+        return True
+    return bool(_RE_TRIVIAL_USER_QUERY.match(stripped))
 from utils import atomic_json_write, base_url_host_matches, base_url_hostname, env_var_enabled, normalize_proxy_url
 from hermes_cli.config import cfg_get
 
@@ -12121,23 +12151,11 @@ class AIAgent:
         #
         # Skip prefetch on trivial prompts (greetings, acknowledgements) to
         # prevent memory-context injection on turns that carry no semantic signal.
-        _TRIVIAL_QUERY_RE = re.compile(
-            r'^(yes|no|ok|okay|sure|thanks|thank you|y|n|yep|nope|yeah|nah|'
-            r'hi|hey|hello|yo|sup|'
-            r'continue|go ahead|do it|proceed|got it|cool|nice|great|done|next|lgtm|k)$',
-            re.IGNORECASE,
-        )
-
         _ext_prefetch_cache = ""
         if self._memory_manager:
             try:
                 _query = original_user_message if isinstance(original_user_message, str) else ""
-                _is_trivial = (
-                    not _query
-                    or _query.strip().startswith("/")
-                    or re.match(_TRIVIAL_QUERY_RE, _query.strip())
-                )
-                if not _is_trivial:
+                if not _is_trivial_user_query(_query):
                     _ext_prefetch_cache = self._memory_manager.prefetch_all(_query) or ""
             except Exception:
                 pass
diff --git a/tests/honcho_plugin/test_session.py b/tests/honcho_plugin/test_session.py
index 64fcfc7ebfdbd..53e26b9e4d888 100644
--- a/tests/honcho_plugin/test_session.py
+++ b/tests/honcho_plugin/test_session.py
@@ -1134,6 +1134,11 @@ class TestTrivialPromptHeuristic:
         for t in ("ok", "OK", " ok ", "y", "yes", "sure", "thanks", "lgtm", "/help", "", "   "):
             assert HonchoMemoryProvider._is_trivial_prompt(t), f"expected trivial: {t!r}"
 
+    def test_classifier_catches_greetings(self):
+        """Greeting words must register as trivial so context injection is skipped."""
+        for t in ("hi", "HI", "hey", "hello", "yo", "sup", " hi ", "hey!", "hello."):
+            assert HonchoMemoryProvider._is_trivial_prompt(t), f"expected trivial: {t!r}"
+
     def test_classifier_lets_substantive_prompts_through(self):
         for t in ("hello world", "what's my name", "explain this", "ok so what's next"):
             assert not HonchoMemoryProvider._is_trivial_prompt(t), f"expected non-trivial: {t!r}"