No, a CMakePresets.json file can only live in the same directory as the top level CMakeLists.txt of a project. You could create a CMakePresets.json file in each of your myproject and externa/external-project directories, or you could add a CMakeLists.txt to the top of your directory structure and have that add one of the other two directories, but I suspect neither is really going to give you quite what you were aiming for.