diff --git a/packages/cli/bin/backstage-cli b/packages/cli/bin/backstage-cli
index 5288f913d9..385911896c 100755
--- a/packages/cli/bin/backstage-cli
+++ b/packages/cli/bin/backstage-cli
@@ -20,7 +20,10 @@ const path = require('path');
 // Figure out whether we're running inside the backstage repo or as an installed dependency
 const isLocal = require('fs').existsSync(path.resolve(__dirname, '../src'));
 
-if (!isLocal || process.env.BACKSTAGE_E2E_CLI_TEST) {
+// This is used for e2e-tests where we create a new app in a tmp folder
+const isTemp = path.resolve(__dirname).includes(require('os').tmpdir());
+
+if (!isLocal || isTemp || process.env.BACKSTAGE_E2E_CLI_TEST) {
   // src-relative imports are a pain to get to work with plain tsc compilation, as the
   // transpiled code will maintain the imports as they are in the source. Which means an
   // import for `helpers/paths` will start like that in the output, which won't work in NodeJS.