plansDirectory setting ignores absolute paths

Bug Description

The plansDirectory setting in both project-level .claude/settings.local.json and global ~/.claude/settings.json is ignored when set to an absolute path pointing outside the project root. Plans continue to be created in the default ~/.claude/plans/ directory.

Configuration

Global settings (~/.claude/settings.json):

{
  "plansDirectory": "/Users/siddharthks/Developer/0xsiddharthks/research/plans"
}

Project-level settings (.claude/settings.local.json):

{
  "plansDirectory": "/Users/siddharthks/Developer/0xsiddharthks/research/plans"
}

Expected Behavior

Plans should be created in /Users/siddharthks/Developer/0xsiddharthks/research/plans/.

Actual Behavior

Plans are created in the default ~/.claude/plans/ directory. The configured directory only has 1 file (manually created), while ~/.claude/plans/ has 38 files including ones from today — confirming the setting is being silently ignored.

Notes

• The documentation says the path is "relative to project root" with an example of "./plans", but the default value is ~/.claude/plans which is itself outside any project root. Absolute paths should be supported, or at minimum the docs should clarify this limitation.
• Both global and project-local settings are ignored, so this isn't a precedence issue.
• The use case here is centralizing all plans into a single research repository regardless of which project is active.

Environment

• macOS (Darwin 25.3.0)
• Claude Code CLI

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