# Set the current working directory of a Node.js program

> Learn how to set the current working directory of a Node.js program with process.chdir(__dirname) so your relative file paths keep working from any folder.

Author: [Flavio Copes](https://flaviocopes.com/about/) | Published: 2022-04-27 | Topics: [Node.js](https://flaviocopes.com/tags/node/) | Canonical: https://flaviocopes.com/node-set-current-working-directory/

I had this problem with a [Node.js](https://flaviocopes.com/nodejs/) script I wrote.

I had set relative paths to reference some files in the local filesystem, like this:

`../../dev/file.md`

and if I ran the program from the folder it was, no problem.

But if I ran the file from another folder, from example the parent folder, the relative links would break.

To fix this, at the beginning of the program, I set

```js
const process = require('process')
process.chdir(__dirname)
```

This set the current working directory of the process to `__dirname` which points to the current file's parent folder path.