CLAUDE.md not loaded when vault path differs from session cwd — no warning, no override setting

Summary

Claude Code loads CLAUDE.md exclusively from the session's working directory and its parents. If a user's primary vault/context directory differs from the session cwd (common when launching from a project subfolder, IDE, or a synced cloud directory), CLAUDE.md silently fails to load with no warning.

Observed behavior

User has a vault at /Users/[user]/Documents/Obsidian Cloud/ containing CLAUDE.md with session-start instructions, context files, and skill definitions. Session cwd was a different directory. CLAUDE.md was never loaded. No error, no warning — silent failure.

The model had full access to the vault files the entire time and could have read them. But without CLAUDE.md bootstrapping, it didn't know to.

Expected behavior / feature request

One or both of:

1. A user-level setting (~/.claude/settings.json) to declare a persistent vault path whose CLAUDE.md always loads regardless of session cwd
2. A warning when Claude Code starts without finding any CLAUDE.md — prompting the user to confirm this is intentional

Why this matters

Users who maintain structured Obsidian/markdown vaults as their AI context layer (a documented and encouraged pattern) are silently broken any time they launch Claude Code from a directory other than the vault root. The failure is invisible and the workaround (always cd to vault root first) is fragile.