diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 1af3da0..4191964 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
   when the scoped clear empties all vectors.
 - Hybrid search: weight RRF lists by query type so original FTS and original vector evidence get the intended 2x boost, instead of accidentally boosting the first lexical expansion. #591
 - MCP: seed llama.cpp/GGML quiet env vars before launching `qmd mcp` so native logs cannot pollute stdio JSON-RPC framing. #593
+- CLI: remove CommonJS `require()` calls from ESM index path normalization so `qmd --index <path>` no longer crashes with `ERR_AMBIGUOUS_MODULE_SYNTAX` on Node 22+. #634
 - GPU: respect explicit `QMD_LLAMA_GPU=metal|vulkan|cuda` backend overrides instead of always using auto GPU selection. #529
 - Fix: preserve original filename case in `handelize()`. The previous
   `.toLowerCase()` call made indexed paths unreachable on case-sensitive
diff --git a/src/cli/qmd.ts b/src/cli/qmd.ts
index 4ceecbe..0c3a1e1 100755
--- a/src/cli/qmd.ts
+++ b/src/cli/qmd.ts
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ import type { Database } from "../db.js";
 import fastGlob from "fast-glob";
 import { execSync, spawn as nodeSpawn } from "child_process";
 import { fileURLToPath } from "url";
-import { dirname, join as pathJoin, relative as relativePath } from "path";
+import { dirname, join as pathJoin, relative as relativePath, resolve as pathResolve } from "path";
 import { parseArgs } from "util";
 import { readFileSync, realpathSync, statSync, existsSync, unlinkSync, writeFileSync, openSync, closeSync, mkdirSync, lstatSync, rmSync, symlinkSync, readlinkSync } from "fs";
 import { createInterface } from "readline/promises";
@@ -173,9 +173,7 @@ function setIndexName(name: string | null): void {
   let normalizedName = name;
   // Normalize relative paths to prevent malformed database paths
   if (name && name.includes('/')) {
-    const { resolve } = require('path');
-    const { cwd } = require('process');
-    const absolutePath = resolve(cwd(), name);
+    const absolutePath = pathResolve(process.cwd(), name);
     // Replace path separators with underscores to create a valid filename
     normalizedName = absolutePath.replace(/\//g, '_').replace(/^_/, '');
   }
diff --git a/src/collections.ts b/src/collections.ts
index e68ff65..a295de7 100644
--- a/src/collections.ts
+++ b/src/collections.ts
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
  */
 
 import { existsSync, mkdirSync, readFileSync, writeFileSync } from "fs";
-import { join, dirname } from "path";
+import { join, dirname, resolve } from "path";
 import { homedir } from "os";
 import YAML from "yaml";
 
@@ -101,9 +101,7 @@ export function setConfigSource(source?: { configPath?: string; config?: Collect
 export function setConfigIndexName(name: string): void {
   // Resolve relative paths to absolute paths and sanitize for use as filename
   if (name.includes('/')) {
-    const { resolve } = require('path');
-    const { cwd } = require('process');
-    const absolutePath = resolve(cwd(), name);
+    const absolutePath = resolve(process.cwd(), name);
     // Replace path separators with underscores to create a valid filename
     currentIndexName = absolutePath.replace(/\//g, '_').replace(/^_/, '');
   } else {
diff --git a/test/esm-ambiguous-module.test.ts b/test/esm-ambiguous-module.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..80e61b7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/esm-ambiguous-module.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+import { describe, expect, test } from "vitest";
+import { execFileSync } from "child_process";
+import { mkdtempSync } from "fs";
+import { tmpdir } from "os";
+import { dirname, join, resolve } from "path";
+import { fileURLToPath } from "url";
+
+const repoRoot = resolve(dirname(fileURLToPath(import.meta.url)), "..");
+
+describe("Node ESM entrypoints", () => {
+  test("CLI --index path normalizes via setIndexName/setConfigIndexName under Node 22+", () => {
+    execFileSync("bun", ["run", "build"], {
+      cwd: repoRoot,
+      encoding: "utf-8",
+      stdio: "pipe",
+    });
+
+    const indexPath = join(mkdtempSync(join(tmpdir(), "qmd-index-")), "nested", "idx");
+    const output = execFileSync("node", ["dist/cli/qmd.js", "--index", indexPath, "--version"], {
+      cwd: repoRoot,
+      encoding: "utf-8",
+      stdio: "pipe",
+    });
+
+    expect(output).toContain("qmd ");
+  }, 120_000);
+});