CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude-work still leaks ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md, kills AGENTS.md

Many Mac users face a practical setup: one machine, two Claude Code accounts, such as a company Team plan and a personal Max plan. The recommended fix is the CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR environment variable, which redirects Claude Code's configuration to a per-account folder like ~/.claude-work instead of the usual ~/.claude. That moves settings.json, CLAUDE.md, skills, MCP settings, and the projects/ conversation logs into the new folder. An alias in ~/.zshrc makes the switch easy, and claude auth status shows which folder is in use.

The catch appears only in a specific layout. Claude Code reads <folder>/.claude/CLAUDE.md as project instructions while walking up from the working directory, so when the repository sits under the home folder, ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md is picked up as if it belonged to a project. Normally that file is just the personal configuration, so nothing seems wrong; with a separate work folder, it suddenly acts as another account's rules, and it also makes the repository's AGENTS.md go unread. The test confirms this is layout-dependent: a repository outside the home folder did not show the mix-in.

The proposed guard is claudeMdExcludes in the work folder's settings.json. Listing the personal CLAUDE.md restores AGENTS.md, but the rules/ folder needs its own entry, or those rules keep leaking through.