diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 34876ceed4..87da990a12 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@
 - Fix: guard model fallback against undefined provider/model values. (#954) — thanks @roshanasingh4.
 - Fix: refactor session store updates, add chat.inject, and harden subagent cleanup flow. (#944) — thanks @tyler6204.
 - Fix: clean up suspended CLI processes across backends. (#978) — thanks @Nachx639.
+- Fix: parse systemd ExecStart arguments when whitespace is present. (#995) — thanks @roshanasingh4.
 - CLI: add `--json` output for `clawdbot daemon` lifecycle/install commands.
 - Memory: make `node-llama-cpp` an optional dependency (avoid Node 25 install failures) and improve local-embeddings fallback/errors.
 - Browser: add `snapshot refs=aria` (Playwright aria-ref ids) for self-resolving refs across `snapshot` → `act`.
diff --git a/src/daemon/systemd-unit.test.ts b/src/daemon/systemd-unit.test.ts
index b7eced7c0a..9a83d58746 100644
--- a/src/daemon/systemd-unit.test.ts
+++ b/src/daemon/systemd-unit.test.ts
@@ -25,14 +25,14 @@ describe("parseSystemdExecStart", () => {
     ]);
   });
 
-  it("supports backslash-escaped characters", () => {
-    const execStart = "/usr/bin/clawdbot gateway start --path \/tmp\/clawdbot";
+  it("preserves backslashes in arguments", () => {
+    const execStart = String.raw`/usr/bin/clawdbot gateway start --path \/tmp\/clawdbot`;
     expect(parseSystemdExecStart(execStart)).toEqual([
       "/usr/bin/clawdbot",
       "gateway",
       "start",
       "--path",
-      "/tmp/clawdbot",
+      "\\/tmp\\/clawdbot",
     ]);
   });
 });