diff --git a/.jules/bolt.md b/.jules/bolt.md
index 7266b5c..8665c02 100644
--- a/.jules/bolt.md
+++ b/.jules/bolt.md
@@ -918,3 +918,10 @@ Inside the `on_any_event` handler of the file watcher, properties like `event_ty
 Action:
 Prefer direct attribute access (`event.event_type` and `event.src_path`) over `getattr` when the attribute is guaranteed to exist.
 Prefer explicit slicing over `range(len())` for iterating subsets of lists. Add conditional fast-paths for expensive string operations in high-frequency event loops.
+## 2024-06-01 — Safely patch code with escapes
+
+Learning:
+When writing Python scripts to patch or generate other Python code that contains backslash escape sequences (like `if '\\' in path:`), always use raw multiline strings (e.g., `patch = r'''...'''`) for the code template. Otherwise, Python will consume the escapes during string evaluation, leading to invalid syntax (e.g., `SyntaxError: unterminated string literal`) in the generated or patched file.
+
+Action:
+Ensure to use raw strings `r"""..."""` when applying patches via `run_in_bash_session` to prevent syntax errors.
diff --git a/src/echo/watcher.py b/src/echo/watcher.py
index f433ffe..dd915d1 100644
--- a/src/echo/watcher.py
+++ b/src/echo/watcher.py
@@ -194,9 +194,18 @@ def _is_ignored_impl(self, path: str) -> bool:
         if not path:
             return False
 
-        normalized_path = path.replace('\\', '/')
+        if '\\' in path:
+            path = path.replace('\\', '/')
+
+        if '/' not in path:
+            if path in self.simple_exact_ignores:
+                return True
+            simple_regex = self.simple_wildcard_regex
+            if simple_regex and simple_regex.match(path):
+                return True
+            return False
 
-        parts = normalized_path.split('/')
+        parts = path.split('/')
         if not self.simple_exact_ignores.isdisjoint(parts):
             return True
 
diff --git a/tests/test_perf_hotpath.py b/tests/test_perf_hotpath.py
index 489c036..f9a772b 100644
--- a/tests/test_perf_hotpath.py
+++ b/tests/test_perf_hotpath.py
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 import timeit
-import pytest
 from echo.watcher import CommandRunnerHandler
 
 def test_hotpath_perf():
diff --git a/tests/test_performance.py b/tests/test_performance.py
index 3302ed4..c6cd316 100644
--- a/tests/test_performance.py
+++ b/tests/test_performance.py
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 import timeit
-import pytest
 from echo.watcher import CommandRunnerHandler
 
 def test_performance_is_ignored_hotpath():