diff --git a/apps/desktop/src/app/artifacts/artifact-utils.ts b/apps/desktop/src/app/artifacts/artifact-utils.ts
index db2d0a9f26..4609150adf 100644
--- a/apps/desktop/src/app/artifacts/artifact-utils.ts
+++ b/apps/desktop/src/app/artifacts/artifact-utils.ts
@@ -56,7 +56,40 @@ const SCREENSHOT_PATH_RE = /Screenshot path:\s*([^\r\n<>]+)/gi
 // scraped heuristically out of prose or a tool payload.
 type PushValue = (value: string, explicit?: boolean) => void
 
+// pip's own traffic, not session output (#52972): terminal output logs every
+// download (`Downloading https://<index>/packages/…/pkg-1.0-py3-none-any.whl`,
+// plus its `.whl.metadata`) and cached files live under pip's cache dir.
+const PIP_CACHE_DIR_RE = /\/(?:\.cache\/pip|library\/caches\/pip|appdata\/local\/pip\/cache)\//
+const WHEEL_RE = /\.whl(?:\.metadata)?$/
+const PACKAGE_INDEX_DIST_RE = /\/packages\/.+\.(?:tar\.gz|tar\.bz2|zip|egg)(?:\.metadata)?$/
+
+function artifactPathForFiltering(value: string): string {
+  if (/^(?:https?|file):\/\//i.test(value)) {
+    try {
+      return decodeURIComponent(new URL(value).pathname).toLowerCase()
+    } catch {
+      // Malformed URL: fall through to plain string normalization.
+    }
+  }
+
+  return value.replace(/\\/g, '/').toLowerCase()
+}
+
+function isPythonPackageDownload(value: string): boolean {
+  const path = artifactPathForFiltering(value)
+
+  return (
+    PIP_CACHE_DIR_RE.test(path) ||
+    WHEEL_RE.test(path) ||
+    (/^https?:\/\//i.test(value) && PACKAGE_INDEX_DIST_RE.test(path))
+  )
+}
+
 function looksLikeArtifact(value: string, explicit = false): boolean {
+  if (!explicit && isPythonPackageDownload(value)) {
+    return false
+  }
+
   if (/^(?:https?:\/\/|data:image\/)/.test(value)) {
     return true
   }
diff --git a/apps/desktop/src/app/artifacts/index.test.ts b/apps/desktop/src/app/artifacts/index.test.ts
index 943b5ccf74..f6ef646c50 100644
--- a/apps/desktop/src/app/artifacts/index.test.ts
+++ b/apps/desktop/src/app/artifacts/index.test.ts
@@ -251,6 +251,36 @@ ${payload}
     ])
   })
 
+  // #52972: pip logs every download with its full URL when the index is not
+  // files.pythonhosted.org (a mirror), and on Windows reports sdists under
+  // its cache dir. None of that is something the session produced.
+  it('does not index pip downloads or cache files from terminal output', () => {
+    const mirror = 'https://mirror.example.com/pypi/packages/7a/1b/0f3c'
+    const report = '/home/example/project/report.pdf'
+    const release = 'https://github.com/example/tool/archive/refs/tags/v1.0.tar.gz'
+
+    const artifacts = collectArtifactsForSession(makeSession({ id: 'pip-session' }), [
+      {
+        content: JSON.stringify({
+          output: [
+            'Collecting anthropic',
+            `  Downloading ${mirror}/anthropic-0.46.0-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (23 kB)`,
+            `  Downloading ${mirror}/anthropic-0.46.0-py3-none-any.whl (223 kB)`,
+            `  Downloading ${mirror}/jiter-0.8.2.tar.gz (163 kB)`,
+            '  Saved C:\\Users\\Alice\\AppData\\Local\\pip\\Cache\\http-v2\\a\\b\\docstring_parser-0.16.tar.gz',
+            `Wrote ${report}; upstream release: ${release}`
+          ].join('\n'),
+          exit_code: 0
+        }),
+        role: 'tool',
+        timestamp: 1_781_774_001,
+        tool_name: 'terminal'
+      }
+    ])
+
+    expect(artifacts.map(artifact => artifact.value).sort()).toEqual([report, release].sort())
+  })
+
   it('does not treat an arbitrary dotted absolute path as an artifact', () => {
     const artifacts = collectArtifactsForSession(makeSession(), [
       {