diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index 177519cd..9aca49cb 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -105,8 +105,8 @@ USER agentmemory
 
 EXPOSE 8000
 
-HEALTHCHECK --interval=30s --timeout=10s --start-period=40s --retries=3 \
-    CMD curl -f http://localhost:8000/v1/health || exit 1
+# No HEALTHCHECK here — the image is shared by api, mcp, and task-worker which each need
+# a different check (or none). Healthchecks are defined per-service in docker-compose.yml.
 
 # Enable authentication by default.
 # You may override with DISABLE_AUTH=true in development.
@@ -136,8 +136,8 @@ USER agentmemory
 
 EXPOSE 8000
 
-HEALTHCHECK --interval=30s --timeout=10s --start-period=40s --retries=3 \
-    CMD curl -f http://localhost:8000/v1/health || exit 1
+# No HEALTHCHECK here — the image is shared by api, mcp, and task-worker which each need
+# a different check (or none). Healthchecks are defined per-service in docker-compose.yml.
 
 # Enable authentication by default.
 # You may override with DISABLE_AUTH=true in development.
diff --git a/agent_memory_server/api.py b/agent_memory_server/api.py
index cefed05f..290d9f4a 100644
--- a/agent_memory_server/api.py
+++ b/agent_memory_server/api.py
@@ -772,12 +772,17 @@ async def search_long_term_memory(
             for key in (
                 "topics",
                 "entities",
-                "namespace",
                 "memory_type",
                 "extraction_strategy",
                 "event_date",
             ):
                 fallback_kwargs.pop(key, None)
+            # Preserve only an exact namespace eq match in fallback; drop namespace for any other
+            # namespace filter (any/all/ne/startswith) to widen the search without crossing an
+            # explicit eq scope boundary.
+            ns_filter = filters.get("namespace") if filters else None
+            if ns_filter is None or getattr(ns_filter, "eq", None) is None:
+                fallback_kwargs.pop("namespace", None)
 
             def _vals(f):
                 vals: list[str] = []