CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR does not fully isolate user-level CLAUDE.md discovery from $HOME/.claude

Description

When running Claude Code with CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR set to a directory other than
$HOME/.claude (e.g. to maintain two fully separate profiles — "work" and
"personal" — on the same machine), the session still appears to pick up
$HOME/.claude/CLAUDE.md (the default location) as a user-level memory
source, even though that path is outside the configured CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR.

This breaks the expectation that CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR fully isolates a profile's
settings, memory, and credentials from the default one.

Setup

Two shell aliases for two fully separate profiles:

alias claude-work="~/.local/bin/claude"
alias claude-personal="CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude-personal ~/.local/bin/claude"

• ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md (work profile) contains an @import line pointing to

a work-only file:
@/path/to/work-org-standards/.claude/CLAUDE.md

• ~/.claude-personal/CLAUDE.md does not exist at all.
• No project-level CLAUDE.md exists anywhere on the path from / down to the

personal project directory being used.

Repro

1. cd ~/personal/some-project (a project with no CLAUDE.md anywhere in its

path, unrelated to the work profile).

1. Run claude-personal (i.e. CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude-personal claude).
2. Claude Code shows:

> Allow external CLAUDE.md file imports?
> This project's CLAUDE.md imports files outside the current working directory.
> External imports:
> /path/to/work-org-standards/.claude/CLAUDE.md

Expected

With CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude-personal and no CLAUDE.md under that
config dir, no external-import prompt should appear at all — there is no
CLAUDE.md in scope for this profile that contains an @import.

Actual

The prompt appears, referencing an @import line that only exists in
~/.claude/CLAUDE.md (the default, non-configured location). This means
the personal profile is reading the work profile's global CLAUDE.md despite
CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR pointing elsewhere — confirmed by grepping the entire
filesystem: the exact import string only exists in ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md.

Approving the prompt would load the work org's internal engineering standards
document into a personal, unrelated project's context — i.e. cross-profile
context leakage.

Environment

• Claude Code version: 2.1.218
• OS: macOS (Darwin 25.5.0)
• Install method: native binary via version symlink

(~/.local/bin/claude -> ~/.local/share/claude/versions/2.1.218)

Additional notes

Searching strings in the compiled binary shows a literal, non-configurable
reference to ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md (using the real home directory, not
CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR) among candidate context files — consistent with this
being a hardcoded fallback rather than a config resolution bug.