diff --git a/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json b/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
index da94613..2aca111 100644
--- a/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
+++ b/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
             "dockerDashComposeVersion": "v2"
         }
     },
-    "postCreateCommand": "/bin/bash .devcontainer/postCreate.sh",
+    "postCreateCommand": "/bin/bash .devcontainer/postCreate.sh ${containerWorkspaceFolder}",
     "postAttachCommand": {
         "rstudio-start": "sudo rstudio-server start"
     },
diff --git a/.devcontainer/postCreate.sh b/.devcontainer/postCreate.sh
index cac58e6..3e43d44 100644
--- a/.devcontainer/postCreate.sh
+++ b/.devcontainer/postCreate.sh
@@ -5,9 +5,9 @@ set -euo pipefail
 pip3 install --user -r .devcontainer/requirements.in
 
 #set R working directory
-! grep -q `pwd` $R_HOME/etc/Rprofile.site && sudo tee -a $R_HOME/etc/Rprofile.site <<< "setwd(\"`pwd`\")"
+! grep -q "$1" $R_HOME/etc/Rprofile.site && sudo tee -a $R_HOME/etc/Rprofile.site <<< "setwd(\"$1\")"
 #set RStudio working directory
-! grep -q `pwd` ~/.config/rstudio/rstudio-prefs.json && cat ~/.config/rstudio/rstudio-prefs.json | jq ". + {\"initial_working_directory\":\"`pwd`\"}" >  ~/.config/rstudio/rstudio-prefs.json 
+! grep -q "$1" ~/.config/rstudio/rstudio-prefs.json && cat ~/.config/rstudio/rstudio-prefs.json | jq ". + {\"initial_working_directory\":\"$1\"}" >  ~/.config/rstudio/rstudio-prefs.json 
 
 #download and extract latest ehrql source
 wget https://github.com/opensafely-core/ehrql/archive/main.zip -P .devcontainer