From 7a9621f1e5099b69bc29fe50e8537b3c665a7a9e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Harsh Bhanushali <bhanushaliharsh434@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2026 07:44:57 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] Expand ~ in path options from the config file

The shell expands ~ in command-line arguments, but values read from
config.yaml were passed to path.resolve as-is, so
`user-data-dir: ~/.config/code-server-data` resolved to
`<cwd>/~/.config/code-server-data`.

Fixes #7051
---
 src/node/cli.ts             |  4 ++--
 src/node/util.ts            | 15 +++++++++++++++
 test/unit/node/cli.test.ts  | 12 ++++++++++++
 test/unit/node/util.test.ts | 16 ++++++++++++++++
 4 files changed, 45 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/node/cli.ts b/src/node/cli.ts
index b7b71f471ddb..6597a3b6ae6b 100644
--- a/src/node/cli.ts
+++ b/src/node/cli.ts
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ import * as crypto from "crypto"
 import { promises as fs } from "fs"
 import { load } from "js-yaml"
 import * as path from "path"
-import { generateCertificate, generatePassword, paths, splitOnFirstEquals } from "./util"
+import { expandTilde, generateCertificate, generatePassword, paths, splitOnFirstEquals } from "./util"
 import { EditorSessionManagerClient } from "./vscodeSocket"
 
 export enum Feature {
@@ -466,7 +466,7 @@ export const parse = (
       }
 
       if (option.path) {
-        value = path.resolve(value)
+        value = path.resolve(expandTilde(value))
       }
 
       switch (option.type) {
diff --git a/src/node/util.ts b/src/node/util.ts
index b7c0c3fa5339..8befd9941426 100644
--- a/src/node/util.ts
+++ b/src/node/util.ts
@@ -511,3 +511,18 @@ export function splitOnFirstEquals(str: string): [string, string | undefined] {
   const split = str.split(/=(.+)?/, 2)
   return [split[0], split[1]]
 }
+
+/**
+ * Expand a leading `~` to the home directory.  The shell does this for
+ * command-line arguments but values from the config file are not expanded.
+ * `~user` forms are left alone.
+ */
+export function expandTilde(p: string): string {
+  if (p === "~") {
+    return os.homedir()
+  }
+  if (p.startsWith("~/") || p.startsWith(`~${path.sep}`)) {
+    return path.join(os.homedir(), p.slice(2))
+  }
+  return p
+}
diff --git a/test/unit/node/cli.test.ts b/test/unit/node/cli.test.ts
index 628dcd98fabf..d31a35fbe2d9 100644
--- a/test/unit/node/cli.test.ts
+++ b/test/unit/node/cli.test.ts
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 import { Level, logger } from "@coder/logger"
 import { promises as fs } from "fs"
+import * as os from "os"
 import * as path from "path"
 import {
   UserProvidedArgs,
@@ -575,6 +576,17 @@ describe("parser", () => {
       "install-extension": ["extension.number1", "extension.number2"],
     })
   })
+  it("should expand ~ in path options from the config file", () => {
+    const configContents = `
+      user-data-dir: ~/.config/code-server-data
+      extensions-dir: ~/extensions
+    `
+    expect(parseConfigFile(configContents, "/fake-config-path")).toEqual({
+      config: "/fake-config-path",
+      "user-data-dir": path.join(os.homedir(), ".config/code-server-data"),
+      "extensions-dir": path.join(os.homedir(), "extensions"),
+    })
+  })
   it("should ignore optional strings set to false", async () => {
     expect(parse(["--cert=false"])).toEqual({})
   })
diff --git a/test/unit/node/util.test.ts b/test/unit/node/util.test.ts
index 572c512a0f04..d92f9e1339d5 100644
--- a/test/unit/node/util.test.ts
+++ b/test/unit/node/util.test.ts
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 import * as cp from "child_process"
 import { promises as fs } from "fs"
+import * as os from "os"
 import * as path from "path"
 import { generateUuid } from "../../../src/common/util"
 import { tmpdir } from "../../../src/node/constants"
@@ -623,3 +624,18 @@ describe("splitOnFirstEquals", () => {
     })
   })
 })
+
+describe("expandTilde", () => {
+  it("should expand a bare ~", () => {
+    expect(util.expandTilde("~")).toBe(os.homedir())
+  })
+  it("should expand a leading ~/", () => {
+    expect(util.expandTilde("~/.config/code-server")).toBe(path.join(os.homedir(), ".config/code-server"))
+  })
+  it("should leave other paths alone", () => {
+    expect(util.expandTilde("/tmp/~/data")).toBe("/tmp/~/data")
+    expect(util.expandTilde("relative/~")).toBe("relative/~")
+    expect(util.expandTilde("~user/data")).toBe("~user/data")
+    expect(util.expandTilde("")).toBe("")
+  })
+})