Who this is for
Anyone about to run a local coding agent. Don’t run local agents? Skip this whole track — use the operator path instead.
The emergency brake
- Already launched an agent from home? Exit it, do this track, relaunch. No harm done — you just gave it a messy room.
- “Current working directory” sounds scary? It means “the folder I’m standing in.” That’s all.
Write the one sentence
About 5 min
cwd = current working directory = the folder your terminal treats as “here.” When you run claude, codex, grok, or hermes, they start from wherever the terminal already is.
- Write: “The agent starts in the folder my terminal is in — not ‘wherever my project feels like it is.’”
Launch claude / codex / grok / hermes from home “just to try.” That is the habit this track breaks.
List the bad launch pads
About 5 min
Check any you have used as a launch pad:
- Mark each bad place you've launched from: Desktop dump · Downloads · home with lots of siblings ·
C:\or/· whole Users / iCloud Drive root. - Notice what the agent “saw” each time: dozens of unrelated folders, zips, screenshots, maybe personal files.
Try this
Open a terminal right now and run pwd.
You should see: your home folder — which proves the point: a fresh terminal starts at home, and an agent started there sees everything.
Picture the good shape
About 5 min
Target pattern (names can vary) — about three folders deep under Documents:
Documents /
Projects /
my-app / <- launch here
README.md
src/ (or whatever the project contains)
Deep enough to be one project. Shallow enough to find again.
Success check
- cwd explained in one written sentence
- Three bad launch places named
- Good pattern recognized (project folder, not disk root)
Common failure modes
| Failure | Fix |
|---|---|
| “The agent will find my project” | It starts from cwd; you choose cwd first |
| “The IDE Open list is the same as cwd” | Confirm with pwd in the terminal you’ll actually use |
Don't launch yet
Don’t launch any agent from home “just to try” — not even once more. PF-02 gives you the folder first.
Bring the exact path and the exact error text to a free 30-minute consult. Copy them first — vague “it doesn't work” wastes the call.