hydra.job.chdir from python script

[dagap]

I am currently creating a hydra config programmatically as follows:

class HydraConfigManager:
    def __init__(self, config_dir: str, config_name: str, job_name: str, overrides: List[str]) -> None:
        with initialize(version_base="1.2", config_path=config_dir, job_name=job_name):
            self.cfg = compose(
                config_name=config_name,
                overrides=overrides,
                return_hydra_config=True,
            )

Now, the overrides contains the option hydra.job.chdir=True. However, this does not seem to be working as expected or not taken into account. When I wrap it through @hydra.main, all the output gets written to the outputs directory but calling it as before outputs everything in the current working directory.

[Jasha10]

Indeed, hydra.job.chdir does not have any effect when used with the compose API; it is only relevant for the hydra.main API.
The motivation for this difference is that compose is supposed to be a pure function, while hydra.main is not a pure function and is has side-effects (such as performing a chdir operation).
When using the compose API, my recommendation would be to manually change the working directory in your user code (e.g. by calling os.chdir).