PackageCompiler create_app cannot find project, but create_sysimage can

I am trying to compile my visualization app for the first time using PackageCompiler.
For this I first needed to make a properly generated Project with a module that holds the functions. I have also placed the Makie GUI code into a function julia_main()::Cint as described and give a precompilation file option. This file calls using LMA_vis, defines my preferences (folders, etc.) and LMA_vis.julia_main().

I could successfully start PackageCompiler.create_sysimage which proceeds, but when I tried PackageCompiler.create_app it does not find the project. This is v.2.2.2 in Julia 1.12.0 on Windows 11.

PS C:\Users\oscar\Documents\Work\Julia> cd LMA_vis
PS C:\Users\oscar\Documents\Work\Julia\LMA_vis> julia -q --project
julia> using PackageCompiler

julia> create_app("LMA_vis", "LMAVisualizer_v0.1"; precompile_execution_file="precompile.jl")
ERROR: could not find project at "LMA_vis"
Stacktrace:
 [1] error(s::String)
   @ Base .\error.jl:44
 [2] create_pkg_context(project::String)
   @ PackageCompiler C:\Users\oscar\.julia\packages\PackageCompiler\FtDNu\src\PackageCompiler.jl:71
 [3] create_app(package_dir::String, app_dir::String; executables::Nothing, precompile_execution_file::String, precompile_statements_file::Vector{…}, incremental::Bool, filter_stdlibs::Bool, force::Bool, c_driver_program::String, cpu_target::String, include_lazy_artifacts::Bool, sysimage_build_args::Cmd, include_transitive_dependencies::Bool, include_preferences::Bool, script::Nothing)
   @ PackageCompiler C:\Users\oscar\.julia\packages\PackageCompiler\FtDNu\src\PackageCompiler.jl:856       
 [4] top-level scope
   @ REPL[3]:1
Some type information was truncated. Use `show(err)` to see complete types.


(LMA_vis) pkg> activate .
  Activating project at `C:\Users\oscar\Documents\Work\Julia\LMA_vis`

julia> create_app("LMA_vis", "LMAVisualizer_v0.1"; precompile_execution_file="precompile.jl")
ERROR: could not find project at "LMA_vis"
...


julia> pwd()
"C:\\Users\\oscar\\Documents\\Work\\Julia\\LMA_vis"

julia> using LMA_vis
  ✗ CxxWrap
  ✗ OpenCV
Precompiling LMA_vis finished.
  1 dependency successfully precompiled in 62 seconds. 502 already precompiled.


julia> create_app("LMA_vis", "LMAVisualizer_v0.1"; precompile_execution_file="precompile.jl")
ERROR: could not find project at "LMA_vis"
...

Also I noticed that CxxWrap and OpenCV failed to precompile. Not sure if that gives any issues, I suppose they are already compiled C code. They seem dependencies of another package.

I am currently not using Preferences.jl as I could not make it work yet. In some attempt to create the .toml file, it only added one variable, skipping a number of raw"c:\file\paths" and not sure it can contain tuples. But I could simply use a preferences file as argument to the App command, which I could load at runtime into julia_main() by include(ARGS[1])

Thanks for your advice.

Edit: Not really clear either how to proceed with preferences. It looks like I will need to take the testing/visualizing code out of the module, and use it within my precompile statements file, as the julia_main function inside the module does not seem to have access to variables defined globally in my precompile file.