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os.chdir

The os.chdir function changes the execution directory for subsequent operations in the current script. It does not change the host Atmos process directory or other script invocations.

Usage​

os.chdir(path)

Arguments​

path
Required. A nonempty string naming an existing directory, without null bytes. Relative paths resolve against the script's current directory; a leading ~ expands as it does for fs.*.

Returns None. Missing paths and paths that are not directories raise an error and leave the current directory unchanged. After a successful change, os.getcwd(), relative fs.* operations, exec.which, and the default directories for exec.run, atmos.*, and steps.* use the new directory. An explicit per-call working_directory= takes precedence. component.exec continues to default to its component's directory. File-backed load() imports remain relative to the importing file; inline scripts resolve imports against their current execution directory.

Before any os.chdir call, atmos.* retains its usual default of the directory Atmos was invoked from. Calling os.chdir explicitly changes that default as well as the script directory.

Call this function only in the script's main thread. Parallel tasks inherit the directory already selected by their parent; calling os.chdir inside a parallel task raises an error, even with max_concurrency=1. Use per-call working_directory= for different directories in different branches.

Examples​

original = os.getcwd()
os.chdir("generated")
fs.write_file("settings.json", json.encode({"enabled": True}))
exec.run(["my-tool", "validate"])
os.chdir(original)

Related​

  • os.getcwd reads the script's current directory.
  • fs.resolve resolves relative paths without changing the directory.