i have all my schematic files neatly placed into different folders for litematica and want to build them with baritone but i can't figure out how to get baritone to understand the directory

I think that baritone uses only schematic files, not schem (you can find online converters), but for an easier use, install schematica and use the schematica command (it builds what's open in schematica)

Baritone can handle .schematic and .schem so that's not the problem here.
Can you please reproduce this with an unoptimized version and upload the logfile?

it works as excpected when i use #build subfolder1/subfolder2/schamatic.format
i guess your problems lies in the naming of your subfolder "Tree Farm". the space makes baritone think that you give him 2 arguments 1. the schem path/name and 2. the x coords. but he cant resolve a string into a integer. i suggest renaming the folder.