The directory option is confusing and prone to errors. It might be better to just ensure that the current directory is empty and if it isn't, throw an error asking the user to create a new directory and run the command there.

Alternatively, we can keep the --directory option and make it optional. If it is an empty string (or .), we check if the current directory is empty.

Neither of the above breaks the current workflow significantly. The current workflow also gives an error if the directory exists.