[BUG] Symlink Resolution Failure: Claude Code Unable to Traverse Symlinked Directory

It would be good to get a setting/environment variable to enable following of symlinks.

I appreciate why this isn't done by default for security, but it does make using Claude with worktrees a pain as there are non checked-in resources that I want to share across all worktrees.

Edit December 2025: the /add-dir & setting for additionalDirectories were added after my original comment + sandboxing features which are a better solution so I personally think this issue should be closed as a WONT FIX now.

Bump. Would love for this feature, ideally would like to be able to build a separate and symlink resources to other repositories to use the same architecture features built instead of copying the entire claude folder over.

well its far from perfect but in my case i needed claude code to read unreal engine source code and my unreal project (which is in another folder) source too so i rand claude code in both folders and ran /init then went to my project's instance of claude code and gave this prompt:
this is an unreal engine project located at "D:/Projects/MyProject" and it has its claude.md file unreal engine is located at "C:/ProgramFiles/EpicGames/UE5.5" and that also has its own claude.md file read engine's md file and merge it with my project's update paths to point to absolute paths instead of relative paths

i can see claude being more aware of the files in both folders but the best result is when i copy the entire project to engine folder , run one init there and just work there until finished, but the downside to that is that i can only do this for one project otherwise conflicts happen

Another bump on this. For me, I have "project-level, but user specific" slash commands. Things that are specific to one project, but I'm not comfortable with merging in the codebase yet as I'm still experimenting with it. It's nice to keep this in my dot files repo and symlink it though, so I still have some sort of version control on it.

All my claude configs are inside my dotifles repo too. This is useful for keeping my env the same across my computers. Hopefully this is solved at some point. Subscribing to keep getting news on this issue.

This feature would massively help structuring & testing marketplace plugins.

Tried to do the same, having my personal agent skills in my user folder /.claude/ but Claude Code is unable to follow them and the content is not available in any other repository where I want to use Claude Code to use my global Skills.

I was able to reproduce, @claude can you fix this ASAP?

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still valid, still to solve

the same problem here #25367

Still happening. Crazy.

A PreToolUse hook can detect symlink traversal before rm follows them:

CMD=$(cat | jq -r '.tool_input.command // empty' 2>/dev/null)
[ -z "$CMD" ] && exit 0
echo "$CMD" | grep -qE '^\s*rm\s+.*-[rf]' || exit 0
TARGET=$(echo "$CMD" | grep -oP 'rm\s+(-[rf]+\s+)*\K\S+' | tail -1)
[ -z "$TARGET" ] || [ ! -d "$TARGET" ] && exit 0
LINKS=$(find "$TARGET" -maxdepth 3 -type l 2>/dev/null | while read l; do
    R=$(readlink -f "$l" 2>/dev/null)
    [[ "$R" != "$(pwd)"* ]] && echo "$l -> $R"
done | head -3)
[ -n "$LINKS" ] && echo "BLOCKED: symlinks pointing outside project" >&2 && exit 2
exit 0

Install: \npx cc-safe-setup --install-example symlink-guard\
This catches the same class of issue as #36339 (NTFS junctions).

also does not work for mentioning files with @

Still happening. When I type @ it does not show or recognize symlink directories.