# Confused by package directory environments

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/confused-by-package-directory-environments/26194>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Created:** [July 9, 2019, 5:52pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/confused-by-package-directory-environments/26194 "2019-07-09T17:52:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 7

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**Author:** ![plafer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/plafer/32/27665_2.png) [@plafer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/plafer)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2021, 5:26pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/confused-by-package-directory-environments/26194/7 "2021-10-21T17:26:14Z")

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Although this thread helped me a great deal already, there’s still something that escapes me. I reproduced the package directory example [in the docs](https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/code-loading/#Package-directories). However, I am still unable to use it properly.

One thing that clearly doesn’t work (the first thing I tried) was to create that structure, then

```bash
$ julia
julia> import Aardvark
ERROR: ArgumentError: Package Aardvark not found in current path:
...

```

I now understand why this is happening. I fired up `julia` without specifying a project, and so julia uses the `@v1.6` by default (the `"@v#.#"` entry in `LOAD_PATH`). Since the packages are not present anywhere in the `LOAD_PATH`, julia doesn’t see them.

Following the advice here, I ran the following

```bash
$ cd <root of package dir>
$ julia --project=.
julia>]
(julia) pkg> dev Bobcat
<Success>
(julia) pkg> dev Aardvark
[ Info: Resolving package identifier `Aardvark` as a directory at `<root of package dir>/Aardvark`.
ERROR: could not find project file in package at `Aardvark` maybe `subdir` needs to be specified

```

Could you please let me know what I’m doing wrong here? My understanding is the `dev <package>` looks for a `Project.toml` file, and fails when it doesn’t see any. However, because I created a package directory, somehow `Aardvark` should count as a package. `julia` gave me a similar error when I tried adding an `X.jl` file present at the root as a package.

What am I missing?

---

_[View the full topic](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/confused-by-package-directory-environments/26194)._