diff --git a/src/Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Common/DockerReference/DockerReferenceUtility.cs b/src/Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Common/DockerReference/DockerReferenceUtility.cs
index fe3122647..83eba3413 100644
--- a/src/Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Common/DockerReference/DockerReferenceUtility.cs
+++ b/src/Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Common/DockerReference/DockerReferenceUtility.cs
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ namespace Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Common;
 
 using System;
 using System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis;
+using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
 using Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Contracts;
 using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;
 
@@ -39,14 +40,29 @@ public static class DockerReferenceUtility
     private const string LEGACYDEFAULTDOMAIN = "index.docker.io";
     private const string OFFICIALREPOSITORYNAME = "library";
 
+    // Characters that only appear in an image reference as part of an unresolved templating
+    // token. '$', '{' and '}' cover shell / Helm / Go-template placeholders (e.g. ${VAR},
+    // {{ .Values.tag }}); '#' covers Azure DevOps and other token-replacement placeholders
+    // (e.g. #imageTag#) and is never valid in a resolved docker reference.
+    private static readonly char[] TemplateDelimiters = ['$', '{', '}', '#'];
+
+    // Matches token-replacement placeholders that wrap an identifier in double underscores,
+    // e.g. __IMAGE_TAG__ or __MCR_ENDPOINT__. Without this they parse as an uppercase repository
+    // name and surface as a noisy parse failure instead of being skipped as a templated value.
+    private static readonly Regex DoubleUnderscoreTokenRegex = new(@"__\w+__");
+
     /// <summary>
-    /// Returns true if the reference contains unresolved variable placeholders (e.g., ${VAR}, {{ .Values.tag }}).
-    /// Such references should be skipped before calling <see cref="ParseFamiliarName"/> or <see cref="ParseQualifiedName"/>.
+    /// Returns true if the reference contains unresolved variable or templating placeholders,
+    /// e.g. <c>${VAR}</c>, <c>{{ .Values.tag }}</c>, <c>#imageTag#</c>, or <c>__IMAGE_TAG__</c>.
+    /// Such references are not real, resolvable images, so they should be skipped before calling
+    /// <see cref="ParseFamiliarName"/> or <see cref="ParseQualifiedName"/> and treated as
+    /// unresolved values rather than reported as parse failures.
     /// </summary>
     /// <param name="reference">The image reference string to check.</param>
     /// <returns><c>true</c> if the reference contains variable placeholder characters; otherwise <c>false</c>.</returns>
     public static bool HasUnresolvedVariables(string reference) =>
-        reference.IndexOfAny(['$', '{', '}']) >= 0;
+        reference.IndexOfAny(TemplateDelimiters) >= 0 ||
+        DoubleUnderscoreTokenRegex.IsMatch(reference);
 
     /// <summary>
     /// Attempts to parse an image reference string into a <see cref="DockerReference"/>.
diff --git a/src/Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Detectors/dockercompose/DockerComposeComponentDetector.cs b/src/Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Detectors/dockercompose/DockerComposeComponentDetector.cs
index 8f2c857d1..ce2669795 100644
--- a/src/Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Detectors/dockercompose/DockerComposeComponentDetector.cs
+++ b/src/Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Detectors/dockercompose/DockerComposeComponentDetector.cs
@@ -40,7 +40,15 @@ public DockerComposeComponentDetector(
 
     public override IEnumerable<string> Categories => [nameof(DetectorClass.DockerCompose)];
 
-    protected override async Task OnFileFoundAsync(ProcessRequest processRequest, IDictionary<string, string> detectorArgs, CancellationToken cancellationToken = default)
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Gets or sets a value indicating whether compose files are processed concurrently.
+    /// Each file is parsed independently into its own <see cref="ISingleFileComponentRecorder"/>
+    /// and <see cref="DockerReferenceUtility"/> is stateless, so parsing is thread-safe and
+    /// scales across cores for repositories containing many compose files.
+    /// </summary>
+    protected override bool EnableParallelism { get; set; } = true;
+
+    protected override Task OnFileFoundAsync(ProcessRequest processRequest, IDictionary<string, string> detectorArgs, CancellationToken cancellationToken = default)
     {
         var singleFileComponentRecorder = processRequest.SingleFileComponentRecorder;
         var file = processRequest.ComponentStream;
@@ -49,18 +57,18 @@ protected override async Task OnFileFoundAsync(ProcessRequest processRequest, ID
         {
             this.Logger.LogInformation("Discovered Docker Compose file: {Location}", file.Location);
 
-            string contents;
+            // Parse directly from the stream; the content is already buffered in memory by
+            // LazyComponentStream, so reading it into an intermediate string only adds an
+            // extra full-file allocation and GC pressure under parallel processing.
+            var yaml = new YamlStream();
             using (var reader = new StreamReader(file.Stream))
             {
-                contents = await reader.ReadToEndAsync(cancellationToken);
+                yaml.Load(reader);
             }
 
-            var yaml = new YamlStream();
-            yaml.Load(new StringReader(contents));
-
             if (yaml.Documents.Count == 0)
             {
-                return;
+                return Task.CompletedTask;
             }
 
             foreach (var document in yaml.Documents)
@@ -75,6 +83,8 @@ protected override async Task OnFileFoundAsync(ProcessRequest processRequest, ID
         {
             this.Logger.LogError(e, "Failed to parse Docker Compose file: {Location}", file.Location);
         }
+
+        return Task.CompletedTask;
     }
 
     private static YamlMappingNode? GetMappingChild(YamlMappingNode parent, string key)
diff --git a/src/Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Detectors/helm/HelmComponentDetector.cs b/src/Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Detectors/helm/HelmComponentDetector.cs
index 9da078303..030f30069 100644
--- a/src/Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Detectors/helm/HelmComponentDetector.cs
+++ b/src/Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Detectors/helm/HelmComponentDetector.cs
@@ -17,6 +17,14 @@ namespace Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Detectors.Helm;
 
 public class HelmComponentDetector : FileComponentDetector, IExperimentalDetector
 {
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Maximum size (in bytes) of a values file the detector will parse. The "*values*" globs
+    /// can match large, non-Helm YAML files whose full-DOM parse dominates worst-case runtime;
+    /// files above this limit are skipped so a single pathological file cannot exhaust the
+    /// detector's time budget.
+    /// </summary>
+    private const long MaxValuesFileSizeBytes = 20 * 1024 * 1024; // 20 MB
+
     public HelmComponentDetector(
         IComponentStreamEnumerableFactory componentStreamEnumerableFactory,
         IObservableDirectoryWalkerFactory walkerFactory,
@@ -41,6 +49,14 @@ public HelmComponentDetector(
 
     public override IEnumerable<string> Categories => [nameof(DetectorClass.Helm)];
 
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Gets or sets a value indicating whether values files are processed concurrently.
+    /// Each file is parsed independently into its own <see cref="ISingleFileComponentRecorder"/>
+    /// and <see cref="DockerReferenceUtility"/> is stateless, so parsing is thread-safe and
+    /// scales across cores for repositories containing many charts.
+    /// </summary>
+    protected override bool EnableParallelism { get; set; } = true;
+
     /// <summary>
     /// Pre-filters scan work to only values files co-located with a Chart.yaml/Chart.yml.
     /// Materializes all matched files, identifies Helm chart directories, then filters.
@@ -65,7 +81,7 @@ protected override async Task<IObservable<ProcessRequest>> OnPrepareDetectionAsy
             .ToObservable();
     }
 
-    protected override async Task OnFileFoundAsync(ProcessRequest processRequest, IDictionary<string, string> detectorArgs, CancellationToken cancellationToken = default)
+    protected override Task OnFileFoundAsync(ProcessRequest processRequest, IDictionary<string, string> detectorArgs, CancellationToken cancellationToken = default)
     {
         var file = processRequest.ComponentStream;
 
@@ -74,20 +90,34 @@ protected override async Task OnFileFoundAsync(ProcessRequest processRequest, ID
         // filename/directory checks are needed.
         try
         {
+            // Check the size before touching ComponentStream so an oversized file is never
+            // buffered into memory. The "*values*" globs can match large, non-Helm YAML files
+            // whose full-DOM parse is the main driver of worst-case (timeout) runtime.
+            var fileInfo = new FileInfo(file.Location);
+            if (fileInfo.Exists && fileInfo.Length > MaxValuesFileSizeBytes)
+            {
+                this.Logger.LogWarning(
+                    "Skipping Helm values file exceeding size limit ({Length} bytes > {Limit} bytes): {Location}",
+                    fileInfo.Length,
+                    MaxValuesFileSizeBytes,
+                    file.Location);
+                return Task.CompletedTask;
+            }
+
             this.Logger.LogInformation("Discovered Helm values file: {Location}", file.Location);
 
-            string contents;
+            // Parse directly from the stream; the content is already buffered in memory by
+            // LazyComponentStream, so reading it into an intermediate string only adds an
+            // extra full-file allocation and GC pressure under parallel processing.
+            var yaml = new YamlStream();
             using (var reader = new StreamReader(file.Stream))
             {
-                contents = await reader.ReadToEndAsync(cancellationToken);
+                yaml.Load(reader);
             }
 
-            var yaml = new YamlStream();
-            yaml.Load(new StringReader(contents));
-
             if (yaml.Documents.Count == 0)
             {
-                return;
+                return Task.CompletedTask;
             }
 
             this.ExtractImageReferencesFromValues(yaml, processRequest.SingleFileComponentRecorder);
@@ -96,6 +126,8 @@ protected override async Task OnFileFoundAsync(ProcessRequest processRequest, ID
         {
             this.Logger.LogError(e, "Failed to parse Helm file: {Location}", file.Location);
         }
+
+        return Task.CompletedTask;
     }
 
     /// <summary>
diff --git a/test/Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Common.Tests/DockerReferenceUtilityTests.cs b/test/Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Common.Tests/DockerReferenceUtilityTests.cs
index d50c65be0..902e80b9d 100644
--- a/test/Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Common.Tests/DockerReferenceUtilityTests.cs
+++ b/test/Microsoft.ComponentDetection.Common.Tests/DockerReferenceUtilityTests.cs
@@ -284,18 +284,66 @@ public void HasUnresolvedVariables_ReturnsTrueForBraces()
         DockerReferenceUtility.HasUnresolvedVariables("{{ .Values.image }}").Should().BeTrue();
     }
 
+    [TestMethod]
+    public void HasUnresolvedVariables_ReturnsTrueForDoubleUnderscoreTokens()
+    {
+        DockerReferenceUtility.HasUnresolvedVariables("__MCR_ENDPOINT__/aks/devinfra/helm3sample:__IMAGE_TAG__").Should().BeTrue();
+    }
+
+    [TestMethod]
+    public void HasUnresolvedVariables_ReturnsTrueForHashDelimitedTokens()
+    {
+        DockerReferenceUtility.HasUnresolvedVariables("#cs_containerRegistryLoginServerUrl#/coreservicesaksservice_#cs_aks_workloadName#_#cs_aks_serviceTrackIdentifier#/#serviceName#:#imageTag#").Should().BeTrue();
+    }
+
     [TestMethod]
     public void HasUnresolvedVariables_ReturnsFalseForPlainReference()
     {
         DockerReferenceUtility.HasUnresolvedVariables("docker.io/library/nginx:latest").Should().BeFalse();
     }
 
+    [TestMethod]
+    public void HasUnresolvedVariables_ReturnsFalseForReferenceWithUnderscores()
+    {
+        DockerReferenceUtility.HasUnresolvedVariables("mcr.microsoft.com/some_repo/my_image:1.0").Should().BeFalse();
+    }
+
     [TestMethod]
     public void TryParseImageReference_ReturnsNullForUnresolvedVariables()
     {
         DockerReferenceUtility.TryParseImageReference("${IMAGE}:latest").Should().BeNull();
     }
 
+    [TestMethod]
+    public void TryParseImageReference_ReturnsNullForDoubleUnderscoreTokens()
+    {
+        DockerReferenceUtility.TryParseImageReference("__MCR_ENDPOINT__/aks/devinfra/helm3sample:__IMAGE_TAG__").Should().BeNull();
+    }
+
+    [TestMethod]
+    public void TryParseImageReference_ReturnsNullForHashDelimitedTokens()
+    {
+        DockerReferenceUtility.TryParseImageReference("#cs_containerRegistryLoginServerUrl#/svc/#serviceName#:#imageTag#").Should().BeNull();
+    }
+
+    [TestMethod]
+    public void TryParseImageReference_DoesNotLogWarningForTemplatedReference()
+    {
+        var logger = new Mock<ILogger>();
+
+        var result = DockerReferenceUtility.TryParseImageReference("__MCR_ENDPOINT__/aks/devinfra/helm3sample:__IMAGE_TAG__", logger.Object);
+
+        result.Should().BeNull();
+        logger.Verify(
+            l => l.Log(
+                It.IsAny<LogLevel>(),
+                It.IsAny<EventId>(),
+                It.IsAny<It.IsAnyType>(),
+                It.IsAny<Exception>(),
+                It.IsAny<Func<It.IsAnyType, Exception, string>>()),
+            Times.Never);
+    }
+
     [TestMethod]
     public void TryParseImageReference_ReturnsNullForInvalidReference()
     {