AI coding CLIs all support a custom config directory

When you need a clean slate — testing, debugging, or isolating a project — each major AI coding CLI lets you override its config directory via an environment variable:

# Claude Code
CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=/tmp/claude-clean claude

# GitHub Copilot CLI
COPILOT_HOME=/tmp/copilot-clean copilot

# OpenAI Codex CLI
CODEX_HOME=/tmp/codex-clean codex

These replace the entire config directory (~/.claude/, ~/.copilot/, ~/.codex/), so existing sessions, permissions, and plugins won't carry over. Copy the default directory contents if you need to preserve anything.

Copilot also has a separate COPILOT_CACHE_HOME for marketplace cache and update packages — setting COPILOT_HOME alone won't relocate those.

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