Just Programmer's Manual

Working Directory

By default, recipes run with the working directory set to the directory that contains the justfile.

The [no-cd] attribute can be used to make recipes run with the working directory set to the directory in which just was invoked.

@foo:
  pwd

[no-cd]
@bar:
  pwd

$ cd subdir
$ just foo
/
$ just bar
/subdir

Use set no-cd^1.51.0 to make all recipes in the current module default to the same behavior.

set no-cd and set working-directory can be overridden on a per-recipe basis with the [no-cd] and [working-directory] attributes.

You can override the working directory for all recipes with set working-directory := '…':

set working-directory := 'bar'

@foo:
  pwd

$ pwd
/home/bob
$ just foo
/home/bob/bar

You can override the working directory for a specific recipe with the working-directory attribute^1.38.0:

[working-directory: 'bar']
@foo:
  pwd

$ pwd
/home/bob
$ just foo
/home/bob/bar

The argument to the working-directory setting or working-directory attribute may be an expression^1.51.0 whose value is absolute or relative. If it is relative it is interpreted relative to the default working directory.