diff --git a/src/cli/flowr.ts b/src/cli/flowr.ts
index 666de739d1..e4ca0f8dff 100644
--- a/src/cli/flowr.ts
+++ b/src/cli/flowr.ts
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ import { defaultConfigFile, flowrMainOptionDefinitions, getScriptsText } from '.
 import { TreeSitterExecutor } from '../r-bridge/lang-4.x/tree-sitter/tree-sitter-executor';
 import type { KnownParser } from '../r-bridge/parser';
 import fs from 'fs';
+import path from 'path';
 
 export const toolName = 'flowr';
 
@@ -98,7 +99,7 @@ if(options['config-json']) {
 if(!usedConfig) {
 	if(options['config-file']) {
 		// validate it exists
-		if(!fs.existsSync(options['config-file'])) {
+		if(!fs.existsSync(path.resolve(options['config-file']))) {
 			log.error(`Config file '${options['config-file']}' does not exist`);
 			process.exit(1);
 		}
diff --git a/src/config.ts b/src/config.ts
index 5dba054676..449bcc3bc0 100644
--- a/src/config.ts
+++ b/src/config.ts
@@ -194,6 +194,14 @@ export function getEngineConfig<T extends EngineConfig['type']>(engine: T): Engi
 
 function loadConfigFromFile(configFile: string | undefined, workingDirectory: string): FlowrConfigOptions {
 	if(configFile !== undefined) {
+		if(path.isAbsolute(configFile) && fs.existsSync(configFile)) {
+			log.trace(`Found config at ${configFile} (absolute)`);
+			const ret = parseConfig(fs.readFileSync(configFile, { encoding: 'utf-8' }));
+			if(ret) {
+				log.info(`Using config ${JSON.stringify(ret)}`);
+				return ret;
+			}
+		}
 		let searchPath = path.resolve(workingDirectory);
 		do{
 			const configPath = path.join(searchPath, configFile);