diff --git a/sidecar/src/main/kotlin/dev/sanderling/sidecar/DriverBackend.kt b/sidecar/src/main/kotlin/dev/sanderling/sidecar/DriverBackend.kt
index 36e4572..9553f20 100644
--- a/sidecar/src/main/kotlin/dev/sanderling/sidecar/DriverBackend.kt
+++ b/sidecar/src/main/kotlin/dev/sanderling/sidecar/DriverBackend.kt
@@ -552,7 +552,9 @@ class StubDriverBackend(
 // FAST_INPUT_SAFE matches text that can be typed with adb `input text`: short,
 // ASCII, and free of shell metacharacters and spaces. Anything else (unicode,
 // injection payloads, overflow-length strings) falls back to the driver path.
-internal val FAST_INPUT_SAFE = Regex("^[A-Za-z0-9@._+-]{1,64}$")
+// The first character excludes '-' so the text can never be read as an option
+// by `input text`.
+internal val FAST_INPUT_SAFE = Regex("^[A-Za-z0-9@._+][A-Za-z0-9@._+-]{0,63}$")
 
 class MaestroDriverBackend(private val serial: String?) : DriverBackend {
     private val dadb: dadb.Dadb
diff --git a/sidecar/src/test/kotlin/dev/sanderling/sidecar/DadbTargetTest.kt b/sidecar/src/test/kotlin/dev/sanderling/sidecar/DadbTargetTest.kt
index ae75b2c..7db71f8 100644
--- a/sidecar/src/test/kotlin/dev/sanderling/sidecar/DadbTargetTest.kt
+++ b/sidecar/src/test/kotlin/dev/sanderling/sidecar/DadbTargetTest.kt
@@ -16,4 +16,10 @@ class DadbTargetTest {
     @Test fun usbSerialRoutesThroughAdbServer() {
         assertEquals(DadbTarget.Server("663c91b1"), dadbTargetFor("663c91b1"))
     }
+
+    // A colon with a non-numeric port is a USB serial that merely contains a
+    // colon, not a host:port, so it must route through the adb server.
+    @Test fun colonWithNonNumericPortIsAServerSerial() {
+        assertEquals(DadbTarget.Server("emulator:5554x"), dadbTargetFor("emulator:5554x"))
+    }
 }
diff --git a/sidecar/src/test/kotlin/dev/sanderling/sidecar/InputTextTest.kt b/sidecar/src/test/kotlin/dev/sanderling/sidecar/InputTextTest.kt
index e6e566f..4534a12 100644
--- a/sidecar/src/test/kotlin/dev/sanderling/sidecar/InputTextTest.kt
+++ b/sidecar/src/test/kotlin/dev/sanderling/sidecar/InputTextTest.kt
@@ -13,12 +13,13 @@ class InputTextTest {
     // correctly. A regression here would corrupt edge-case input or shell-inject
     // the device.
     @Test fun fastInputPathAcceptsOnlyShellSafeAscii() {
-        for (safe in listOf("demo@folio.app", "ledger123", "Checking", "-1", "1e10", "0.0000001")) {
+        for (safe in listOf("demo@folio.app", "ledger123", "Checking", "1e10", "0.0000001", "42")) {
             assertTrue(FAST_INPUT_SAFE.matches(safe), "expected fast path for: $safe")
         }
         val fallback = listOf(
             "Emergency Fund", "🙂🔥💸", "  ", "\t\n", "'; DROP TABLE--",
             "<script>alert(1)</script>", "../../etc/passwd", "%s%n", "", "a".repeat(4096),
+            "-1", "-rf", // a leading dash could be read as an option by `input text`
         )
         for (text in fallback) {
             assertTrue(!FAST_INPUT_SAFE.matches(text), "expected driver fallback for: $text")