Session starts in parent directory instead of the git repo the CLI was launched from

Summary

Claude Code did not start the session in the directory it was launched from. The CLI was started inside a git repository, but the session's working directory was resolved to the parent folder, and the environment context reported "Is a git repository: false".

Environment

• Claude Code version: 2.1.220
• Platform: macOS (Darwin 25.5.0), zsh
• Model: claude-fable-5

What happened

1. Created a fresh, empty git repository (git init, no commits yet, worktree contained only .git/), e.g. ~/code/<repo> inside a parent folder that contains many other repos but is not itself a repo.
2. Launched claude from inside ~/code/<repo> (repo created ~35 min before the session).
3. The session's environment context showed:

• Primary working directory: ~/code (the parent folder)
• Is a git repository: false

1. Throughout the session, the Bash tool's working directory also kept resetting to the parent folder ("Shell cwd was reset to ~/code").

Expected

The session should start in the launch directory (~/code/<repo>) and detect it as a git repository.

Actual

The session ran against the parent directory. As a consequence the agent scaffolded a new project as a sibling directory of the repo instead of inside it, while the user was looking at their (empty-looking) repo — considerable confusion until the mismatch was found.

Repro hints

• The launch directory was a freshly-initialized repo with an empty worktree and no commits at launch time — possibly the directory-resolution logic falls back to a parent/previous directory in that case.
• The parent folder had been used as a Claude Code working directory in earlier sessions (project history exists for it), so a stale project-association fallback could also explain it.

---
🤖 Generated with Claude Code