iTerm2 keeps recreating symlink

Question

Problem

I created a symlink awhile back from ~/Library/Application Support/iTerm2 to ~/.config/iterm2/AppSupport (for convenience when I was moving all my configs into a managed repo in accordance with the XDG structure). Having finished my work on iTerm preferences, I want to cleanup the repo and delete the symlink. But even after deleting it, the symlink always reappears on restart of iTerm2.

Attempts

1. Tried creating a new iterm config folder, but it always recreates the symlink in the original location ~/.config/iterm2/AppSupport

2. Tried removing the Application Support folder, but it just gets recreated

3. Tried removing the SavedState sticky bit, but just gets recreated

4. Tried looking through the prefs in com.googlecode.iterm2.plist but didn't see anything relevant (maybe I overlooked?).

Is this due to iTerm2 running a long lasting server that remember some type of state including symlinks that are pointing to its Application Support folder?

Temp Solution

The application works with my custom preferences location, so my current solution is just adding iterm2/AppSupport to my .gitgnore, but would like to know why this is happening.

$ tree -aL 2 ~/.config/iterm2                                                                                                                                                                                                               
.
├── .hushlogin
├── AppSupport -> /Users/mubuntu/Library/Application Support/iTerm2
│   ├── DynamicProfiles
│   ├── SavedState
│   │   ├── lock
│   │   ├── restorable-state.sqlite
│   │   ├── restorable-state.sqlite-shm
│   │   └── restorable-state.sqlite-wal
│   ├── Scripts
│   ├── iTermServer-3.4.23
│   ├── iterm2-daemon-1.socket
│   ├── iterm2-daemon-1.socket.lock
│   ├── parsers
│   │   ├── 46594f23855769cc8bbf0908a02b520fa9aabad0151b53d1a2a51fe351452aed
│   │   └── 47968eaa6beb856315113397c1b1c7848b7127dcd7bddb6df5380f941f8632d5
│   └── version.txt
├── com.googlecode.iterm2.plist
├── configure_iterm2.zsh
├── fonts
│   ├── FontPatcher.zip
│   ├── SauceCodeProNerdFont.zip
│   ├── SourceCodePro+Powerline+Awesome+Regular.ttf
│   └── SourceCodePro.zip
├── modern.itermkeymap
└── sourdiesel.itermcolors