diff --git a/src/direct/mod.rs b/src/direct/mod.rs
index 52c1e3d..e963031 100644
--- a/src/direct/mod.rs
+++ b/src/direct/mod.rs
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-use std::{collections::VecDeque};
+use std::{collections::VecDeque, path::Path};
 
 use crate::{token::{Token, MessageType}, builtin::modules::Module};
 
@@ -22,12 +22,12 @@ impl LangSpecs {
     }
 }
 
-pub fn resolve_directives(tokens: &mut VecDeque<Token>) -> LangSpecs {
+pub fn resolve_directives(tokens: &mut VecDeque<Token>, origin: &String) -> LangSpecs {
     let mut specs = LangSpecs::default();
 
     for (idx, token) in tokens.iter().enumerate() {
         match token {
-            Token::CompilerDirective(text, _) => parse_directive(text, idx, &mut specs),
+            Token::CompilerDirective(text, _) => parse_directive(text, idx, &mut specs, origin),
             _ => ()
         }
     }
@@ -56,7 +56,9 @@ pub fn from_list(text: &str) -> Vec<String> {
     vec
 }
 
-fn parse_directive(text: &str, token_idx: usize, specs: &mut LangSpecs) {
+fn parse_directive(text: &str, token_idx: usize, specs: &mut LangSpecs, origin: &String) {
+
+    std::env::set_current_dir(Path::new(origin).parent().unwrap()).expect("unable to change cwd");
     
     for cap in DIRECTIVE_REGEX.captures_iter(text) {
         let mut enumerator = cap.iter().enumerate();
diff --git a/src/main.rs b/src/main.rs
index a5590ee..be992cc 100644
--- a/src/main.rs
+++ b/src/main.rs
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ fn compile(settings: &Settings) -> Option<(Vec<Func>, Vec<Declr>, Vec<BuiltinFun
         diagnostics.add_source_origin(code, src.path());
         
         if let Ok(mut tokens) = tokenize(code, &mut diagnostics) {
-            let specs = crate::direct::resolve_directives(&mut tokens);
+            let specs = crate::direct::resolve_directives(&mut tokens, src.path());
 
             // read source of every embedded file and tokenize
             for (idx, src, path) in specs.embedded_files() {