diff --git a/src/application/Setup.ts b/src/application/Setup.ts
index c36f22f38..47e9d1587 100644
--- a/src/application/Setup.ts
+++ b/src/application/Setup.ts
@@ -308,7 +308,7 @@ const objectValue = (value: unknown): Record<string, unknown> => {
   return parsed.success ? parsed.data : {};
 };
 const parseObject = (text: string): Record<string, unknown> =>
-  objectValue(JSON.parse(text));
+  objectSchema.parse(JSON.parse(text));
 const isMissing = (cause: unknown): boolean =>
   cause instanceof Error && "code" in cause && cause.code === "ENOENT";
 const restoreConfig = async (
diff --git a/src/domain/binaryTarget.ts b/src/domain/binaryTarget.ts
index 00839e15f..d8352a9a1 100644
--- a/src/domain/binaryTarget.ts
+++ b/src/domain/binaryTarget.ts
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 import { constants } from "node:fs";
-import { access, open, realpath } from "node:fs/promises";
+import { access, open, realpath, stat } from "node:fs/promises";
 import { isAbsolute, resolve } from "node:path";
 
 import { BinaryTargetError } from "./errors.js";
@@ -36,6 +36,8 @@ export const parseBinaryTarget = async (
   try {
     await access(candidate, constants.R_OK);
     const path = await realpath(candidate);
+    if (!(await stat(path)).isFile())
+      return err(new BinaryTargetError(path, "target is not a regular file"));
     if (
       targetKind === "database" ||
       (targetKind === undefined && path.toLowerCase().endsWith(".hop"))
diff --git a/tests/binaryTarget.test.ts b/tests/binaryTarget.test.ts
index a9c2d7819..d2cb496ee 100644
--- a/tests/binaryTarget.test.ts
+++ b/tests/binaryTarget.test.ts
@@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ describe("executable header parsing", () => {
 
 describe("binary target I/O", () => {
   it("resolves relative Hopper databases and rejects unknown or unreadable paths", async () => {
-    directory = await mkdtemp(join(tmpdir(), "bb-target-"));
+    directory = await mkdtemp(join(tmpdir(), "rea-target-"));
     await writeFile(join(directory, "sample.hop"), "database");
     await writeFile(join(directory, "text"), "hello");
     expect((await parseBinaryTarget("sample.hop", directory)).ok).toBe(true);
@@ -75,6 +75,11 @@ describe("binary target I/O", () => {
     expect((await parseBinaryTarget("missing", directory)).ok).toBe(false);
   });
 
+  it("rejects non-regular targets before reading them", async () => {
+    directory = await mkdtemp(join(tmpdir(), "rea-target-"));
+    expect((await parseBinaryTarget(directory)).ok).toBe(false);
+  });
+
   it("honors an explicit database kind without relying on the file suffix", async () => {
     directory = await mkdtemp(join(tmpdir(), "rea-target-"));
     await writeFile(join(directory, "saved-analysis"), "database");
diff --git a/tests/setupConfig.test.ts b/tests/setupConfig.test.ts
index f62384683..4836ee2ef 100644
--- a/tests/setupConfig.test.ts
+++ b/tests/setupConfig.test.ts
@@ -59,4 +59,20 @@ describe("JSON client configuration transaction", () => {
     });
     expect(await readFile(configPath, "utf8")).toBe("not-json");
   });
+
+  it.each(["null", "[]", '"value"'])(
+    "refuses a non-object JSON root without overwriting %s",
+    async (original) => {
+      directory = await mkdtemp(join(tmpdir(), "rea-setup-"));
+      const configPath = join(directory, "mcp.json");
+      await writeFile(configPath, original);
+      expect(await configureJsonClient({ name: "cursor", configPath })).toEqual(
+        { status: "failed", reason: "readback" },
+      );
+      expect(await readFile(configPath, "utf8")).toBe(original);
+      await expect(
+        readFile(`${configPath}.rea.backup`, "utf8"),
+      ).rejects.toThrow();
+    },
+  );
 });