[Bug] Claude consistently misspells user home directory path in file operations

I'm seeing the same issue. In one run, it spelled my home directory as bhavaniki and subsequently failed to do basic editing work because it was looking in the wrong place.

I ran a fresh context and quizzed it, and it made a _different_ spelling error, and didn't even understand the nature of its error. This is using Sonnet 4.5.

> OK Claude. What is the path to my home directory?

⏺ Based on the paths I can see in the environment, your home directory is /Users/bhavanaki.

> Which path in my environment leads you to that answer?

⏺ Looking at the environment information, I can see:

  1. Working directory: /Users/bhavanaki/dev/src/github.com/<redacted>
  2. Global CLAUDE.md path: /Users/bhavanaki/.claude/CLAUDE.md

  Both paths start with /Users/bhavanaki, which follows the standard macOS home directory convention of
  /Users/<username>, leading me to conclude that /Users/bhavanaki is your home directory.

> Please provide for me the value of the HOME environment variable.

⏺ Bash(echo $HOME)
  ⎿  /Users/bhavanki

⏺ The value of the HOME environment variable is /Users/bhavanki.

  (I should note that I had a typo in my previous responses - I incorrectly wrote "bhavanaki" when it's actually
  "bhavanki".)

> How did you arrive at the incorrect value for my home directory?

⏺ I made a reading error. When I looked at the paths in the context provided to me:

  - Working directory: /Users/bhavanki/dev/src/github.com/<redacted>
  - Global CLAUDE.md path: /Users/bhavanki/.claude/CLAUDE.md

  I misread "bhavanki" and incorrectly transcribed it as "bhavanaki" in my responses. The correct value was actually
   present in my context all along - I simply made a typo when writing out my answer by swapping the 'i' and 'a' in
  your username.

After further experimenting, it looks like Sonnet 4.5 is the problem. When I use Sonnet 3.7 or 4 for large tasks, everything works as expected. I've tried a few ways to instruct Claude under Sonnet 4.5 to verify / alter the home directory, but nothing works. Even when I ask it to confirm my instruction, it describes it using a misspelled directory name.

Yes, I agree that the bug is in Sonnet 4.5 as I've never experienced this issue with Opus 4.1.

Experiencing the same on Haiku 4.5

This issue has been inactive for 30 days. If the issue is still occurring, please comment to let us know. Otherwise, this issue will be automatically closed in 30 days for housekeeping purposes.

This issue does not happen with Opus 4.5, but when a subagent gets spawned and uses Sonnet or Haiku it still occurs.

This issue has been automatically closed due to 60 days of inactivity. If you're still experiencing this issue, please open a new issue with updated information.

This issue was closed incorrectly despite recent human comments. This behavior of the bot is reported at https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/16497. Please upvote that issue, so maybe it gets noticed.

I also hit this regularly:

● Read(Cargo.toml)
  ⎿  Read 28 lines

● Read(server/src/lib.rs)
  ⎿  Read 873 lines

● Read(/home/rconte/src/evac/server/api.proto)
  ⎿  Error reading file

● Read(server/api.proto)
  ⎿  Read 165 lines

My home directory is /home/rcorre. My CWD is /home/rcorre/src/evac, so I'm partly confused why it's even using a full path. It successfully used relative paths, then attempted a (wrong) full path, then fell back to relative paths again. My CLAUDE.md actually mentions this file with a relative path:

Communication uses **Protocol Buffers** (defined in `server/api.proto`)

@rcorre try adding something like this to your ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md

## Path Configuration (CRITICAL for Haiku model)

**Known bug:** The Haiku model incorrectly changes username from `rcorre` to `rconte`

**Required behavior:**
- Username is: rcorre
- ALWAYS use relative paths: `.`, `./`, `../`
- NEVER construct paths with /Users/rconte (this is WRONG)
- If absolute paths needed: /Users/rcorre/ (this is CORRECT)

it worked for me. Sometimes it gets confused, but only because it didn't read the global instructions for some reason, but when you ask it to read the global claude md file and start over, it correctly use the user path.

fwiw I've tried adding instructions to my user-level CLAUDE.md and defining a skill. I've even had Claude tell me literally what to put in place, and then did that. Nothing has worked, except perhaps for one transient correct usage. I've even had Claude confirm to me that it understands where my home directory is, and then immediately get it wrong again when I've asked it to do a small task. (This is using Sonnet 4.5.)

It feels like there is a disconnect between what the local agent thinks and what the model thinks, with both separate from ground truth, and nothing can connect them up.

It's maddening.

@bhavanki the above was a result of a conversation with chat gpt and claude, it also suggested creating a symlink 😂 so each time Haiku tries to guess the username, it would be linked to the correct one, but the instructions in my ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md worked

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