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Always-on hook misses the flag file when CLAUDE_CODE_SUBPROCESS_ENV_SCRUB removes CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR #255
Description
What happens
I keep my Claude Code config in ~/.config/claude with CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR exported from my shell, and the flag file is at $CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR/.i-have-adhd-always. The always-on SessionStart hook runs and exits 0 but prints nothing, so ADHD mode never loads.
I also set CLAUDE_CODE_SUBPROCESS_ENV_SCRUB=1 in the env block of settings.json. With that set, Claude Code leaves CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR out of the hook's environment. always-on.mjs then falls back to ~/.claude/.i-have-adhd-always, doesn't find it there and exits quietly.
Steps to reproduce
- Export
CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIRpointing anywhere other than~/.claude. - Add
"CLAUDE_CODE_SUBPROCESS_ENV_SCRUB": "1"toenvin$CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR/settings.json. - Install the plugin and run
touch "$CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR/.i-have-adhd-always". - Start a session with
claude -p "ok" --debug-file hook.log --include-hook-events --output-format stream-json --verbose.
The debug log shows that the hook ran:
Hooks: SessionStart:startup [node -e "..."] (plugin i-have-adhd@i-have-adhd) finished with status 0 (238ms)
Its hook_response event has "stdout": "" though. When I run the same command with --settings '{"env":{"CLAUDE_CODE_SUBPROCESS_ENV_SCRUB":"0"}}', CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR shows up in the hook environment and the ruleset loads.
I saw this on Claude Code 2.1.296 on macOS with plugin 0.4.1. main still has the same lookup in always-on.mjs, always-on.sh and always-on.ps1.
Possible fix
I'm not sure what the cleanest fix is, so here is one idea. Installed plugins are copied to <config dir>/plugins/cache/..., so when CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR is missing the hook could work out the config dir from its own install path before it falls back to ~/.claude:
function resolveClaudeDir(scriptDir) {
if (process.env.CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR) return process.env.CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR;
const marker = `${path.sep}plugins${path.sep}cache${path.sep}`;
const i = scriptDir.indexOf(marker);
if (i !== -1) return scriptDir.slice(0, i);
return path.join(os.homedir(), ".claude");
}This depends on how Claude Code lays out its plugin cache, which could change, and it doesn't help plugins loaded with --plugin-dir. CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA also survives the scrub and sits under the config dir, but using it depends on the layout in the same way. You may know of a better signal than either of these. Whichever way you go, the .sh and .ps1 fallbacks would need the same change.
This is the same kind of quiet failure as #129, where a missing environment variable makes the hook exit 0 with no output.
Workaround
A symlink at the default location works:
mkdir -p ~/.claude
ln -s "$CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR/.i-have-adhd-always" ~/.claude/.i-have-adhd-alwaysHappy to open a PR if you'd like.
Activity
fix(hooks): resolve config dir from script path when CLAUDE_CONFIG_DI…