diff --git a/src/sqlite/SqliteDatabaseProvider.ts b/src/sqlite/SqliteDatabaseProvider.ts
index 612d97afef..a4ed9aeb1b 100644
--- a/src/sqlite/SqliteDatabaseProvider.ts
+++ b/src/sqlite/SqliteDatabaseProvider.ts
@@ -13,7 +13,6 @@ import type {
 } from "../domain/analysisErrorBase.js";
 import {
   AnalysisCancelledError,
-  AnalysisInputError,
   AnalysisOutputError,
   AnalysisResourceConstraintError,
 } from "../domain/analysisErrorCore.js";
@@ -30,7 +29,7 @@ import {
   DEFAULT_SQLITE_WORKER_TIMEOUT_MS,
   sqliteInspectionParameters,
 } from "../domain/sqlite/sqliteDatabase.js";
-import { isAbsolute } from "node:path";
+import { analysisInputErrorFromIssues } from "../domain/inputIssueProjection.js";
 import { PrivateRuntimeRoot } from "../process/PrivateRuntimeRoot.js";
 import {
   OwnedCommandFailure,
@@ -533,14 +532,8 @@ const completedSqliteEvidence = (
 
 const validateSqliteInput = (input: InspectSqliteDatabaseInput): void => {
   const parsed = inspectSqliteDatabaseInputSchema.safeParse(input);
-  if (!parsed.success || !isAbsolute(input.path))
-    throw new AnalysisInputError(operation, undefined, [
-      {
-        path: ["path"],
-        reason: "invalid_format",
-        message: parsed.success
-          ? "path must be an absolute local filesystem path"
-          : parsed.error.message,
-      },
-    ]);
+  if (!parsed.success)
+    throw analysisInputErrorFromIssues(operation, parsed.error.issues, input, {
+      cause: parsed.error,
+    });
 };
diff --git a/tests/boundary/sqlite/sqliteDatabaseProvider.test.ts b/tests/boundary/sqlite/sqliteDatabaseProvider.test.ts
index cd561c3c02..c2140ba382 100644
--- a/tests/boundary/sqlite/sqliteDatabaseProvider.test.ts
+++ b/tests/boundary/sqlite/sqliteDatabaseProvider.test.ts
@@ -4,7 +4,8 @@ import { access, lstat, readFile, symlink, writeFile } from "node:fs/promises";
 import { DatabaseSync } from "node:sqlite";
 import { promisify } from "node:util";
 import { fileURLToPath } from "node:url";
-import { expect, it as nativeTest, onTestFinished } from "vitest";
+import { expect, it as nativeTest, onTestFinished, vi } from "vitest";
+import { ZodError } from "zod";
 import { projectAnalysisError } from "../../../src/domain/analysisErrorProjection.js";
 import { ProviderCleanupError } from "../../../src/domain/providerCleanupError.js";
 import { SQLITE_DATABASE_LIMITS } from "../../../src/sqlite/SqliteDatabaseLimits.js";
@@ -54,6 +55,32 @@ const createFixture = async (wal = false) => {
 const expectPrivateRootRemoved = (path: string) =>
   expect(access(path)).rejects.toMatchObject({ code: "ENOENT" });
 
+nativeTest.each([
+  { input: { path: "relative.db" }, field: "path" },
+  {
+    input: { path: "/selected.db", table: "records", row_limit: 0 },
+    field: "row_limit",
+  },
+  { input: { path: "/selected.db", columns: ["id"] }, field: "columns" },
+])(
+  "attributes invalid provider input to its argument before allocating resources: %j",
+  async ({ input, field }) => {
+    const createRuntime = vi.fn(async () => {
+      throw new Error("Invalid input must not allocate a SQLite runtime");
+    });
+    const provider = new SqliteDatabaseProvider({}, undefined, createRuntime);
+    onTestFinished(() => provider.close());
+    const result = await provider.inspect({ ...input });
+    if (result.ok) throw new Error("Expected an input rejection");
+    expect(result.error.cause).toBeInstanceOf(ZodError);
+    expect(projectAnalysisError(result.error)).toMatchObject({
+      code: "invalid_request",
+      details: { issues: [{ path: [field] }] },
+    });
+    expect(createRuntime).not.toHaveBeenCalled();
+  },
+);
+
 it("enforces a selected worker budget and completes the corrected same-database retry", async () => {
   const { database } = await createFixture();
   const original = await readFile(database.path);