Missing add_dir / addDirectories support in ClaudeAgentOptions

[volkov]

Summary

The Python SDK (claude-agent-sdk 0.1.48) does not support the --add-dir CLI flag via ClaudeAgentOptions. The JS SDK (0.2.76) already has an addDirectories type in its type definitions.

Use case

When running Claude agents programmatically, there's no way to pass additional directories that should be accessible to the agent and have their .claude/skills/ automatically discovered. The --add-dir flag works fine when using the CLI directly, but there's no corresponding option in ClaudeAgentOptions.

This is needed to:

• Share skills across projects by pointing to a common skills directory
• Give agents access to directories outside cwd with automatic skill discovery
• Match the behavior available via claude --add-dir <path>

Current behavior

# No add_dir or additional_directories field exists
options = ClaudeAgentOptions(
    cwd="/path/to/workspace",
    # add_dir=["/path/to/shared-skills"]  # ← not available
)

Expected behavior

Something like:

options = ClaudeAgentOptions(
    cwd="/path/to/workspace",
    add_dir=["/path/to/shared-skills"],
)

Which would translate to claude --add-dir /path/to/shared-skills when spawning the subprocess.

Environment

• Python SDK version: 0.1.48 (latest on PyPI)
• JS SDK version: 0.2.76 (already has addDirectories type)
• Claude CLI: supports --add-dir <directories...>

[shubham108prakash-hub]

Hi there! 👋

Thanks for bringing this up! The good news is that this functionality actually already exists in the Python SDK (including in v0.1.48), but the parameter is named add_dirs rather than add_dir.

You can pass a list of strings or Path objects to add_dirs, and it will correctly translate to the --add-dir flag when spawning the Claude CLI under the hood.

Here is how you can use it:

from claude_agent_sdk import ClaudeAgentOptions

options = ClaudeAgentOptions(
cwd="/path/to/workspace",
add_dirs=["/path/to/shared-skills"], # ← Use add_dirs instead of add_dir
)

Let me know if this works for your use case or if you run into any other issues!

[saivedant169]

This is already supported in the current SDK (v0.1.49). The field is called add_dirs (plural):

from claude_agent_sdk import ClaudeAgentOptions

options = ClaudeAgentOptions(
    cwd="/path/to/workspace",
    add_dirs=["/path/to/shared-skills", "/another/dir"],
)

It accepts both str and pathlib.Path objects. Under the hood, it passes --add-dir <path> for each directory when spawning the CLI subprocess.

Defined in types.py line 1056 and handled in subprocess_cli.py lines 235-238.

[volkov]

Oh, I didn’t find that—sorry! Thanks!