WebStorm: New AngularCli Project: Error: directory should match format "path"

it's a known cli 1.7.x issue - https://github.com/angular/angular-cli/issues/9655; unfortunately we have been unable to fix it on our end so far... We are working with Angular team on this, please follow WEB-31291 for updates. As a workaround, you can try creating new angular app in terminal using ng new <project_name> and then opening the generated project folder in WebStorm