diff --git a/open-sse/services/taskAwareRouting.ts b/open-sse/services/taskAwareRouting.ts
index 3cc2da730c..93b44efec8 100644
--- a/open-sse/services/taskAwareRouting.ts
+++ b/open-sse/services/taskAwareRouting.ts
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ const MAX_CONVERSATION_AFFINITY_ENTRIES = 1000;
  * Task routing is additive: other strategies are wholly unaffected.
  */
 export function isTaskRoutingStrategy(strategy: unknown): boolean {
-  return ["smart", "task", "task-aware", "task_aware", "auto"].includes(
+  return ["smart", "task", "task-aware", "task_aware"].includes(
     String(strategy ?? "").toLowerCase()
   );
 }
diff --git a/tests/unit/combo-task-aware.test.ts b/tests/unit/combo-task-aware.test.ts
index b8a9887c7b..7e056d456e 100644
--- a/tests/unit/combo-task-aware.test.ts
+++ b/tests/unit/combo-task-aware.test.ts
@@ -255,9 +255,10 @@ describe("reorderByTaskWeight", () => {
 
 describe("isTaskRoutingStrategy", () => {
   it("returns true for task-aware strategy names", () => {
-    for (const name of ["smart", "task", "task-aware", "task_aware", "auto"]) {
+    for (const name of ["smart", "task", "task-aware", "task_aware"]) {
       assert.ok(isTaskRoutingStrategy(name), `Expected ${name} to be task-routing`);
     }
+    assert.ok(!isTaskRoutingStrategy("auto"), "auto scoring must not be reordered by task routing");
   });
 
   it("is case-insensitive", () => {