diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 783575b69..e401cbfa7 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@
 - Auto-reply: block reply ordering fix (duplicate PR superseded by #503). (#483) — thanks @AbhisekBasu1
 - Auto-reply: avoid splitting outbound chunks inside parentheses. (#499) — thanks @philipp-spiess
 - Auto-reply: preserve spacing when stripping inline directives. (#539) — thanks @joshp123
+- Auto-reply: relax reply tag parsing to allow whitespace. (#560) — thanks @mcinteerj
 - Auto-reply: fix /status usage summary filtering for the active provider.
 - Status: show provider prefix in /status model display. (#506) — thanks @mcinteerj
 - Status: compact /status with session token usage + estimated cost, add `/cost` per-response usage lines (tokens-only for OAuth).
diff --git a/src/auto-reply/reply.directive.parse.test.ts b/src/auto-reply/reply.directive.parse.test.ts
index e3a2fecfb..ad03d8fa6 100644
--- a/src/auto-reply/reply.directive.parse.test.ts
+++ b/src/auto-reply/reply.directive.parse.test.ts
@@ -162,12 +162,24 @@ describe("directive parsing", () => {
     expect(res.cleaned).toBe("ok");
   });
 
+  it("extracts reply_to_current tag with whitespace", () => {
+    const res = extractReplyToTag("ok [[ reply_to_current ]]", "msg-1");
+    expect(res.replyToId).toBe("msg-1");
+    expect(res.cleaned).toBe("ok");
+  });
+
   it("extracts reply_to id tag", () => {
     const res = extractReplyToTag("see [[reply_to:12345]] now", "msg-1");
     expect(res.replyToId).toBe("12345");
     expect(res.cleaned).toBe("see now");
   });
 
+  it("extracts reply_to id tag with whitespace", () => {
+    const res = extractReplyToTag("see [[ reply_to : 12345 ]] now", "msg-1");
+    expect(res.replyToId).toBe("12345");
+    expect(res.cleaned).toBe("see now");
+  });
+
   it("preserves newlines when stripping reply tags", () => {
     const res = extractReplyToTag(
       "line 1\nline 2 [[reply_to_current]]\n\nline 3",
diff --git a/src/auto-reply/reply/reply-tags.ts b/src/auto-reply/reply/reply-tags.ts
index 86ca07956..ef2de524a 100644
--- a/src/auto-reply/reply/reply-tags.ts
+++ b/src/auto-reply/reply/reply-tags.ts
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ export function extractReplyToTag(
 
   const idMatch = cleaned.match(/\[\[\s*reply_to\s*:\s*([^\]\n]+)\s*\]\]/i);
   if (idMatch?.[1]) {
-    cleaned = cleaned.replace(/\[\[\s*reply_to\s*:[^\]\n]+\]\]/gi, " ");
+    cleaned = cleaned.replace(/\[\[\s*reply_to\s*:\s*[^\]\n]+\s*\]\]/gi, " ");
     replyToId = idMatch[1].trim();
     hasTag = true;
   }