Feature request: option to hide or redact cwd in startup banner
Problem
The Claude Code startup banner prints the current working directory (e.g. cwd: /var/home/kieran). On many systems this directly exposes the OS username, which is a privacy issue during screenshares, recorded demos, or pair-programming sessions.
There doesn't appear to be a setting, CLI flag, or env var that hides or redacts this line. --name sets a session display name but doesn't replace the cwd output, and nothing in the settings.json schema targets the startup banner.
Requested
An opt-in way to hide or redact the cwd shown in the startup banner. Any of these would solve the problem:
- A settings flag, e.g.
"hideCwdInBanner": trueor"startupBanner": { "showCwd": false } - A CLI flag, e.g.
--hide-cwd/--redact-cwd - An env var, e.g.
CLAUDE_CODE_HIDE_CWD=1 - A redaction mode that replaces the home portion with
~(so/var/home/kieran/projects/foo→~/projects/foo). Useful but only a partial fix since the home directory name itself is often the username.
Full hide is the most broadly useful — users who want the path visible already have it by default.
Environment
- Claude Code on Linux (Bazzite / Fedora Atomic), home resolves to
/var/home/<user> - Same issue applies on macOS (
/Users/<user>) and any Linux with/home/<user>
This issue has 1 comment on GitHub. Read the full discussion on GitHub ↗