diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 6934b936..3db9588e 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -7,6 +7,23 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 
 ## [Unreleased]
 
+### Fixed
+
+- **Every fresh install broke on the first query (`redis` 8.1.0)** — the
+  SDK imports `redis.asyncio` directly but never declared `redis` as a
+  dependency, so pip took `falkordb`'s `redis>=7.1.0` range and resolved
+  to the newest release. redis 8.1.0 injects an internal
+  `himport_registry` key into `ConnectionPool.connection_kwargs`, which
+  `falkordb`'s `Is_Cluster()` forwards verbatim to the synchronous
+  `redis.Redis()` constructor — raising
+  `TypeError: Redis.__init__() got an unexpected keyword argument
+  'himport_registry'`, surfaced as `DatabaseUnavailableError`. `ping()`
+  still succeeded, so health checks passed and the failure only appeared
+  on real work. `redis` is now declared explicitly as `>=7.2,<8.1`. The
+  lower bound is a second fix: `falkordb` 1.6 imports
+  `redis.driver_info`, which does not exist before redis 7.2, so its
+  declared `>=7.1.0` floor was also unusable.
+
 ## [1.4.0] - 2026-08-10
 
 Chunk-level extraction cache for `update()` (#288): re-ingesting a
diff --git a/graphrag_sdk/pyproject.toml b/graphrag_sdk/pyproject.toml
index 45fe9af6..5d9a1b47 100644
--- a/graphrag_sdk/pyproject.toml
+++ b/graphrag_sdk/pyproject.toml
@@ -34,6 +34,13 @@ classifiers = [
 dependencies = [
     "pydantic>=2.0,<3.0",
     "falkordb>=1.0,<2",
+    # We import redis.asyncio directly, so pin it explicitly rather than
+    # inheriting falkordb's range. Upper bound: redis 8.1 injects
+    # "himport_registry" into ConnectionPool.connection_kwargs, which
+    # falkordb's Is_Cluster() forwards to the sync redis.Redis() constructor
+    # -> TypeError on the first query. Lower bound: falkordb 1.6 imports
+    # redis.driver_info, which only exists from redis 7.2 on.
+    "redis>=7.2,<8.1",
     "numpy>=1.24,<3",
     "python-dotenv>=1.0",
     "tiktoken>=0.5,<1.0",
diff --git a/graphrag_sdk/tests/test_connection.py b/graphrag_sdk/tests/test_connection.py
index b113def0..c04e5380 100644
--- a/graphrag_sdk/tests/test_connection.py
+++ b/graphrag_sdk/tests/test_connection.py
@@ -322,3 +322,37 @@ async def test_ping_reports_unreachable_instead_of_raising(self):
              patch("falkordb.asyncio.FalkorDB") as mock_falkor:
             mock_falkor.side_effect = RedisConnectionError("Connection refused")
             assert await conn.ping() is False
+
+
+class TestRedisVersionCompat:
+    """Guards the redis-py range declared in pyproject.toml.
+
+    falkordb's ``Is_Cluster()`` copies ``pool.connection_kwargs`` off the
+    async pool and hands them straight to the *synchronous*
+    ``redis.Redis()`` constructor. Any key redis-py adds to its async pool
+    kwargs but does not accept on ``Redis.__init__`` therefore breaks the
+    first query with a TypeError. redis 8.1.0 did exactly that with
+    ``himport_registry``, so assert the invariant rather than the version
+    number — this fails on any future release that reintroduces the shape.
+    """
+
+    def _pool_kwargs(self, cfg: ConnectionConfig) -> dict:
+        """Build the pool the way _ensure_client() does, capturing its kwargs."""
+        conn = FalkorDBConnection(cfg)
+        with patch("falkordb.asyncio.FalkorDB", side_effect=RuntimeError("stop after pool")):
+            with pytest.raises(Exception):
+                conn._ensure_client()
+        assert conn._pool is not None, "pool was not constructed"
+        return conn._pool.connection_kwargs.copy()
+
+    @pytest.mark.parametrize("ssl", [False, True])
+    def test_sync_redis_accepts_async_pool_kwargs(self, ssl):
+        import redis as sync_redis
+        import redis.asyncio as async_redis
+
+        kwargs = self._pool_kwargs(ConnectionConfig(ssl=ssl))
+        # Mirror Is_Cluster()'s own fixups.
+        kwargs["ssl"] = kwargs.pop("connection_class", None) is async_redis.SSLConnection
+
+        # Constructing does not open a socket, so no live server is needed.
+        sync_redis.Redis(**kwargs)