Arguments for nested configuration

How do you drive the nested configuration logic (https://cookiecutter.readthedocs.io/en/stable/advanced/nested_config_files.html) via the CLI and/or API with no-inputs? As far as I can tell, "directory" tells it to use a sub-directory of the repo, rather than a nested template, so it always uses the first template.

The only option we've found so far is to patch the cookiecutter.json files to have only one option while rendering the cookiecutter, then restoring the previous version after!