diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 1f0be4a..5a5f3e6 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
 __pycache__/
 *.egg-info/
 _version.py
+.DS_Store
+
diff --git a/stormworkflow/main.py b/stormworkflow/main.py
index 4b4c029..4c2da3b 100644
--- a/stormworkflow/main.py
+++ b/stormworkflow/main.py
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
 from importlib.resources import files
 from argparse import ArgumentParser
 from pathlib import Path
+import sys
 
 import yaml
 from packaging.version import Version
@@ -134,6 +135,25 @@ def main():
 
     wf = scripts.joinpath('workflow.sh')
 
+    # Check output directory is writeable and exists
+    output_dir = conf['RUN_OUT']
+    if not output_dir:
+        _logger.error(f"Output directory {output_dir} is not defined in configuration")
+        
+    # convert to absolute path
+    output_dir = os.path.abspath(output_dir)
+    try:
+        os.makedirs(output_dir,exist_ok=True)
+    except Exception as e:
+        _logger.error(f"Can not create output directory {output_dir}: {e}")
+        sys.exit(1)
+    if not os.access(output_dir,os.W_OK):
+        _logger.error(f"Output directory {output_dir} is not writeable")
+        sys.exit(1)
+    
+    # update configurations with absolute path
+    conf['RUN_OUT'] = output_dir
+
     run_env = os.environ.copy()
     run_env['L_SCRIPT_DIR'] = slurm.joinpath('.')
     for k, v in conf.items():