Multi-account GitHub

This guide covers maintaining multiple GitHub accounts on a single machine.

The scenario

You have:

• A personal GitHub account (alice)
• A work GitHub account (alice-corp)
• Both accounts might have repos you actively maintain

You want to:

• Clone repos from either account
• Push commits from the correct account
• Automatically use the right SSH key and identity

Setup

1. Generate unique SSH keys

One key per account:

# Personal account
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f ~/.ssh/id_personal -C "alice@gmail.com"

# Work account
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f ~/.ssh/id_work -C "alice@company.com"

2. Add keys to GitHub

Personal account (alice):

1. Go to https://github.com/settings/keys
2. Add New SSH key
3. Paste contents of ~/.ssh/id_personal.pub
4. Save

Work account (alice-corp):

1. Log into your work account
2. Go to https://github.com/settings/keys
3. Add New SSH key
4. Paste contents of ~/.ssh/id_work.pub
5. Save

3. Test SSH authentication

# Personal account
ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_personal -T git@github.com
# → Hi alice! You've successfully authenticated...

# Work account
ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_work -T git@github.com
# → Hi alice-corp! You've successfully authenticated...

4. Create gitswitch profiles

# Personal profile
gitswitch add personal "Alice" alice@gmail.com \
  --ssh-key ~/.ssh/id_personal \
  --gh-user alice

# Work profile
gitswitch add work "Alice" alice@company.com \
  --ssh-key ~/.ssh/id_work \
  --gh-user alice-corp

Daily workflow

Cloning from different accounts

# Clone personal project
gitswitch personal
git clone git@github.com:alice/my-project.git
cd my-project

# Clone work project
gitswitch work
git clone git@github.com:alice-corp/company-repo.git
cd company-repo

Working on personal projects

cd ~/projects/my-library
gitswitch personal

# Verify identity
gitswitch current
# → personal / alice@gmail.com

# Commit - attributed to alice@gmail.com using id_personal
git commit -m "Add feature"
git push

Working on work projects

cd ~/work/internal-api
gitswitch work

# Verify identity
gitswitch current
# → work / alice@company.com

# Commit - attributed to alice@company.com using id_work
git commit -m "Fix bug"
git push

Setting up automatic switching per repo

Pin each repo to its account:

cd ~/projects/my-library
gitswitch pin personal

cd ~/work/internal-api
gitswitch pin work

Now when you cd into these directories, gitswitch suggests the right account:

cd ~/projects/my-library
# gitswitch: this repo usually uses personal — switch? [y/N]

cd ~/work/internal-api
# gitswitch: this repo usually uses work — switch? [y/N]

Managing GitHub notifications

With both accounts authenticated, you can check notifications:

# Personal account notifications
gitswitch personal
gh notification list

# Work account notifications
gitswitch work
gh notification list

Handling multiple clones of same repo

If you clone the same GitHub repo in different locations:

# Clone 1: Working copy (as personal)
cd ~/projects/my-library
gitswitch personal
git clone git@github.com:alice/my-library.git main
cd main
gitswitch pin personal

# Clone 2: Backup/archive (still as personal)
cd ~/backup
gitswitch personal
git clone git@github.com:alice/my-library.git archive
cd archive
gitswitch pin personal

# Each maintains its own identity preference

Scenario: Contributing to repos owned by others

If someone with the alice-corp account contributes to the alice account’s repo:

# The repo is under personal account
git clone git@github.com:alice/open-project.git
cd open-project

# But alice-corp wants to contribute
gitswitch work
# Now commits are attributed to alice@company.com (work account)

git commit -m "Add contribution"
git push

The contribution will show as coming from alice-corp account (because SSH auth and git config are switched).

If you want the contribution under the personal account:

cd open-project
gitswitch personal
# Now commits are from alice@gmail.com (personal account)

git commit -m "Add contribution"
git push

Troubleshooting

Wrong account pushing

If you pushed with the wrong account:

# Check current identity
gitswitch current

# If wrong, switch and amend
gitswitch personal
git commit --amend --reset-author
git push --force-with-lease  # If not yet pulled by others

SSH key permission denied

Permission denied (publickey)
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Check:

1. Is the correct identity active?
2. Is the SSH key added to that GitHub account?

gitswitch current
# Should show the account you're pushing to

# Test SSH
ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_personal -T git@github.com
# Should show: Hi alice! You've successfully authenticated...

# Check git is using the right key
git config --global core.sshCommand

Confused which account owns a repo

Check the GitHub remote:

git remote -v
# Shows the URL, which indicates the account:
# git@github.com:alice/... → personal account
# git@github.com:alice-corp/... → work account

# Or check recent commits
git log -3 --format="%an <%ae>"
# Shows which accounts were used recently

Too many repos to manage

With many repos across accounts, organization helps:

~/github/
├── personal/          # All personal repos
│   ├── project-a/
│   ├── project-b/
│   └── ...
└── work/              # All work repos
    ├── internal-api/
    ├── service-x/
    └── ...

Then:

cd ~/github/personal/*
# gitswitch nudges to personal

cd ~/github/work/*
# gitswitch nudges to work

Advanced: Automatic switching by directory pattern

Add to ~/.zshrc:

function cd() {
  builtin cd "$@"

  if [[ $PWD == *"/github/personal"* ]]; then
    gitswitch personal 2>/dev/null
  elif [[ $PWD == *"/github/work"* ]]; then
    gitswitch work 2>/dev/null
  fi
}

Now changing directories automatically switches accounts.

Next steps

→ Open Source + Work
→ Multi-client Freelancer
→ Quick Start