diff --git a/apps/app/src/components/ui/markdown-local-file-link.ts b/apps/app/src/components/ui/markdown-local-file-link.ts
index 86bf965f5..f50e4674d 100644
--- a/apps/app/src/components/ui/markdown-local-file-link.ts
+++ b/apps/app/src/components/ui/markdown-local-file-link.ts
@@ -269,6 +269,17 @@ function parseAbsoluteLocalFileHref(
   return parsed;
 }

+// Shell-style home paths (`~`, `~/x`, `~user/x`) are not workspace-relative.
+// The renderer has no home directory to expand them against, so leave them as
+// plain links instead of joining the literal `~` onto the workspace root.
+// Only a bare `~` or a first segment that starts with `~` and is followed by a
+// `/` counts; a plain file name that happens to start with `~` (for example
+// `~notes.md` or a `~$report.docx` lock file) is still a relative file. This
+// runs on the *decoded* href, so `%7E/x` is covered too.
+function isHomeRelativePath(path: string): boolean {
+  return /^~(?:[^/]*\/|$)/u.test(path);
+}
+
 // Apply scheme detection after file line suffix parsing so references such as
 // `Cargo.lock:14:33` and `foo.md:5` remain relative file links.
 const URI_SCHEME_PATTERN = /^[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9+.-]*:/u;
@@ -297,6 +308,7 @@ export function resolveRelativeLocalFileHref({
     parsedHref === null ||
     parsedHref.path.length === 0 ||
     parsedHref.path.startsWith("/") ||
+    isHomeRelativePath(parsedHref.path) ||
     parsedHref.path.startsWith("#") ||
     parsedHref.path.startsWith("?") ||
     URI_SCHEME_PATTERN.test(parsedHref.path)