Unclear Which conditions make a settings file fail the new check is not known.
What
Claude Code now checks the real location of certain files before reading them. A symbolic link, or symlink, is a file that points to another location.
- Reading a file through a symlink that leads onto a network share or automount path now fails with
ERR_SYMLINK_TO_NETWORK_PATH: "Refusing to read a file through a symbolic link that leads onto a network share or automount path; replace the link with a regular file to use it". Paths that cannot be checked, such as Windows device-namespace spellings or symlink chains too long to follow, are also refused. - Settings files outside the Claude config folder
~/.claudego through this check. - A path given to
--settingsis resolved through its links, with letter case normalised, before it is read and recorded. A failing path gets "Error: Cannot use settings file : ". - Saving settings, the legacy
settings.local.jsonrevoke and the per-key scan now read from the resolved path rather than the raw one, with one resolver for user and policy settings and another for project files.
Why
A settings file or other file that is really a link onto a network share can no longer be read through that link. If you keep settings behind such a link, replace it with a regular file or you will see these errors.
Names in the bundle--settings
The entry above is what we published on the day. These lines were added later, as Anthropic's own pages caught up, and they sit beside the original rather than replacing it.
Confirmed since
Anthropic's documentation has since written up --settings, on Manage sessions.
* Flags that configure the session, such as `--permission-mode`, `--model`, or `--settings`sessions see the edit
Added since
A small documentation edit on Choose a sandbox environment touched a line naming --settings after this was published.
* If `~/.srt-settings.json` doesn't exist and you don't pass `--settings`, the runtime starts anyway. It blocks network access and confines writes to built-in runtime paths such as `/tmp/claude`, `~/.npm/_logs`, and `~/.claude/debug`. Don'…sandbox-environments see the edit
Something disagreesSomething we can check disagrees with this entry, or the writer said they could not settle it.
The writer flagged doubt
Which conditions make a settings file fail the new check is not known.
Anthropic's documentation agrees
A small documentation edit on Choose a sandbox environment touched a line naming --settings after this was published.