AutoRouteGuard always called in all nested navigation when applied to initial child root

[jonpittock]

With this setup:

AutoRoute(
  path: '/',
  page: SectionShellRoute.page,
  children: <AutoRoute>[
    RedirectRoute(
      path: '',
      redirectTo: 'protected',
    ),

    AutoRoute(
      path: 'protected',
      page: ProtectedScreenRoute.page,
      guards: <AutoRouteGuard>[
        CustomAuthenticatedGuard(),
      ],
    ),

    AutoRoute(
      path: 'unprotected',
      page: UnprotectedScreenRoute.page,
    ),

The unprotected route will seem to always apply the initial child route guard. You can see I have clearly defined which routes should use guards, but yet it ignores this. Instead, applying to everything within the parent shell.

If I remove the guard, of course I can then access!

Is this a bug? I have looked through issues and documentation and there is nothing describing the expectated behaviour.