HardhatError: HH1007: The file is treated as local but is outside the project

[hammersharkfish]

const hre = require("hardhat");

async function main() {
  // Run the compile task
  await hre.run("compile");

  console.log("Compilation finished successfully");
}

main()
  .then(() => process.exit(0))
  .catch((error) => {
    console.error(error);
    process.exit(1);
  });

HardhatError: HH1007: The file some/outside/path/contracts/storage.sol is treated as local but is outside the project
Here is my path of hardhat.config.cjs (of local directory)

  paths: {
    sources: 'some/path/outside/contracts',
    tests: ' some/path/outside/tests',
    cache: 'some/path/outside/cache',
    artifacts: 'some/path/outside/artifacts',
  }

My understanding is paths is used to find sources from any directory so why this error .

[schaable]

Hi @hammersharkfish, defining paths outside the root directory is not supported due to the complexities it introduces to the compilation process.