[BUG] Claude uses absolute paths to access files in the current project and misspells the home directory

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?

This is a copy of #10580, which was closed/locked but not resolved.

 ❯ claude --version
2.1.37 (Claude Code)

Claude frequently uses absolute paths when accessing files within PWD, and in doing so, misspells my home directory.
This causes extraneous command failures and retries.
Ideally, claude would just use relative paths to avoid this when working in PWD. If it must, at least using ~ or $HOME would work better.

I've tried fixing this with the following CLAUDE.md:

# General Claude Guidance

Do not use absolute paths to access files within the current project.
Always use relative paths.
This prevents spelling mistakes in my home directory.

This does not work:

❯ Do you have any instructions from the global CLAUDE.md?                                                                                                                                      
                                                          
● Yes, I have one instruction from your global CLAUDE.md:                                                                                                                                      
                       
  - Use relative paths (not absolute paths) when accessing files within the current project, to prevent spelling mistakes in your home directory.                                              
                       
❯ Summarize this project                                                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                                                                               
● Explore(Explore project structure)                                                                                                                                                           
  ⎿  ❯ Explore the project at /home/rconte/src/andpass to understand what it is. Look at the top-level files, build files, source structure, and any README or documentation. Provide a        
     Waiting…d . -maxdepth 2 -type f \( -name "README*" -o -name "*.md" -o -name "*.gradle*" -o -name "*.toml" -o -name "package.json" -o -name "*.xml" \) | head -20)   

Note it immediately used an absolute path and misspelled my home dir (it should be rcorre, not rconte).

What Should Happen?

Claude should use relative paths to acccess files within PWD.

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

Ask claude to summarize a project. Note that it uses absolute paths.

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.1.37 (Claude Code)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Other Linux

Terminal/Shell

Other

Additional Information

_No response_