[BUG] claude-cli creates its configs when asked to use none

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

something strange happens when I do like this

in /tmp/testclaude
➜ ls

➜ claude --dangerously-skip-permissions --setting-sources ""

╭─── Claude Code v2.0.76 ....────────╯

➜ ls
'~'

➜ tree /tmp/testclaude/\~/.claude/
/tmp/testclaude/~/.claude/
└── plugins
└── marketplaces
└── claude-plugins-official
├── external_plugins
│   ├── asana
│   ├── context7
│   ├── firebase
...

⏺ That's a bug in Claude Code. When you pass --setting-sources "", some initialization code is creating ~/.claude/ but treating ~ as a literal string instead of expanding it to your home directory.

The tilde expansion happens at the shell level, but here it looks like the path is being constructed programmatically (likely in Node.js) without using the proper home directory resolution (e.g., os.homedir() or process.env.HOME).

You can clean it up with:

rm -rf '/tmp/testclaude/~'

This should be reported at https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues - the bug is that when --setting-sources "" is used, some code path is writing to a literal ~ path instead of expanding it properly.

---

imho "no sources" should not try to overwirte my configs, I am happy that it fails and not deletes existing

What Should Happen?

"no sources" should not try to create any config. moreovere to overwirte my configs, I am happy that it fails and not deletes existing

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

claude --dangerously-skip-permissions --setting-sources ""

Claude Model

None

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.0.76

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

iTerm2

Additional Information

_No response_