path_string until after the external call, it succeeds. It also succeeds if I use a string literal instead of a Path. Is this a bug or is this a misunderstanding on my part of the ASAP deconstruction? PathLike, the compiler throws could not deduce positional-only parameter #0 of callee '__fspath__'. I would think I should be able to use a PathLike here to get an __fspath__ without the explicit Path type, right?