Wrong working directory

April 30, 2026 · View on GitHub

Playbook ID: working-directory Category: build Severity: medium Tags: directory, path, config

What this failure means

A command ran in an unexpected working directory. Relative paths expected a specific directory layout that did not exist at the time of execution.

Common log signals

no such file or directory
cannot find the path specified
chdir
not a git repository
error: no such file
working directory not found
failed to change directory

Diagnosis

A command ran in an unexpected working directory. Relative paths expected a specific directory layout that did not exist at the time of execution.

Fix steps

  1. Check the working-directory configuration in your CI workflow file.
  2. Use absolute paths or $(pwd) references where possible.
  3. Add ls -la before the failing step to confirm the directory contents.
  4. Verify the repository structure matches what the workflow expects.

Validation

  • Re-run the failing workflow step.
  • Confirm the original failure signature for Wrong working directory is gone.

Likely files to inspect

(Not specified.)

Run Faultline

faultline analyze build.log
faultline explain working-directory
faultline workflow build.log --json --mode agent

Search phrases this page answers

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  • Build: wrong working directory
  • cannot find the path specified
  • GitHub Actions wrong working directory
  • faultline explain working-directory

Generated from playbooks/bundled/log/build/working-directory.yaml. Do not edit directly — run make docs-generate.