How do I change the user's console cwd?

[maybeec]

I have seen https://github.com/devonfw/IDEasy/blob/main/cli/src/main/java/com/devonfw/tools/ide/context/IdeContext.java#L686 but I am not clear yet on whether this will change also the cwd of the user's console or simply the cwd of the context to program against.

If so, is there any prepared programmatic option to change the cwd of the user's console by your prepared framework?

[hohwille]

It is technically impossible to set CWD or environment variables of a running terminal session (like bash or zsh) from a sub-process (a program like ideasy called from your shell).
E.g. if you type cd .. in your bash you do not execute a program cd that changes your CWD but instead call a build-in function of bash.
This is why we had to come up with some smart tricks to make IDEasy work in the way we want to have it for UX.
Compared to devonfw-ide we improved that a lot going from alias to function that has various advantages.

In order to provide advanced support when changing directories we provide a command callled icd that just like ide is technically a function and not a program. You can find the documentation here.

If you are curious for the feature you found in our Java code that you linked...
This is for cases where an IDEasy invocation needs to change the project on the fly.
As an example you can call ide create example-project - from any directory.
In order to technically call our commandlet that performs the create sub-command we already need to create an IdeContext for the current working directory.
But after we have initialised the new project (example-project), we need the IdeContext to be initialized in this new project for further setup.
This is all development internal knowledge not relevant for end-users by since I know you, I can assume you do not only look at IDEasy from an end-user perspective ;)