git-user

A CLI tool to seamlessly switch between multiple Git and GitHub identities. Manage personal, work, and other profiles with a single command that updates your git config, GitHub CLI auth, and SSH routing all at once.

The Problem

If you use multiple GitHub accounts (personal, work, open-source org), switching between them is painful. You have to manually:

• Change git config --global user.name and user.email
• Run gh auth switch
• Swap SSH keys

git-user handles the global identity switch with one command.

Installation

# Download and install
curl -o /usr/local/bin/git-user https://raw.githubusercontent.com/<your-user>/git-user/main/git-user
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/git-user

# Or just copy manually
sudo cp git-user /usr/local/bin/git-user
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/git-user

Requirements

• bash 4.0+
• git
• gh (GitHub CLI) — optional but recommended for auth switching

Quick Start

# 1. Add your profiles
git-user add personal
# → prompts for: name, email, GitHub username, org name / repo owner, SSH key (optional), remote host

git-user add work

# 2. Switch profiles
git-user switch personal

# 3. See what's active
git-user list

Commands

Command	Aliases	Description
git-user add <profile>		Create a new profile interactively
git-user switch <profile>	use, set	Activate a profile (see below)
git-user list	ls	List all profiles (● = active)
git-user current	who, status	Show the active profile and git config
git-user edit <profile>		Modify an existing profile
git-user remove <profile>	rm, delete	Delete a profile (with confirmation)
git-user help	--help, -h	Show help message
git-user version	--version, -v	Print version

What switch Does

When you run git-user switch <profile>, it performs four actions:

1. Git config — Sets user.name and user.email globally
2. GitHub CLI auth — Runs gh auth switch to the profile's account (prompts gh auth login if not yet authenticated)
3. SSH alias — If the profile has an SSH key configured, creates or updates a managed SSH host alias and activates global Git URL rewrites so existing git@github.com:owner/repo.git remotes use that profile's key. If not, it clears any previous managed SSH routing.
4. Remote owner — If you're inside a git repo and it has an origin, updates the owner part to the profile's configured org name or repo owner. This defaults to the profile's GitHub username.

$ git-user switch work

  Switching to profile: work

  ✔ git config → John Smith <john@company.com>
  ✔ gh auth → switched to @john-company
  ✔ SSH alias → git-user-work-github-com (~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work)
  ✔ remote origin → git@github.com:megacorp/company-api.git

  ✔ Switched to 'work'

Configuration File

All profiles are stored in ~/.git_user.conf as a simple key-value format:

# ~/.git_user.conf
personal.name=John Doe
personal.email=john@gmail.com
personal.gh_user=johndoe
personal.org_name=johndoe
personal.remote_host=github.com

work.name=John Smith
work.email=john@company.com
work.gh_user=john-company
work.org_name=megacorp
work.ssh_key=~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work
work.remote_host=github.com

_active=personal

Profile Fields

Field	Required	Description
name	✔	Git author name (user.name)
email	✔	Git author email (user.email)
gh_user	✔	GitHub username for gh CLI auth
org_name		Repo owner to use for origin updates. Defaults to gh_user.
ssh_key		Path to SSH private key used for the managed SSH alias
remote_host		GitHub host for gh auth and the SSH alias (default: github.com)

Custom Config Location

Override the config path with the GIT_USER_CONF environment variable:

export GIT_USER_CONF="$HOME/.config/git-user/profiles.conf"
git-user list

Override the SSH config path with GIT_USER_SSH_CONFIG:

export GIT_USER_SSH_CONFIG="$HOME/.config/ssh/git-user-config"
git-user switch personal

Force keychain-style SSH directives for managed aliases with GIT_USER_SSH_USE_KEYCHAIN=1:

export GIT_USER_SSH_USE_KEYCHAIN=1
git-user switch personal

Examples

Setting Up Personal + Work Profiles

$ git-user add personal
  Full name: John Doe
  Email: john@gmail.com
  GitHub username: johndoe
  Org name / repo owner [johndoe]:
  SSH key path (optional): ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
  Remote host (optional) [github.com]:

✔ Profile 'personal' added successfully!

$ git-user add work
  Full name: John Smith
  Email: john.smith@megacorp.com
  GitHub username: john-megacorp
  Org name / repo owner [john-megacorp]: megacorp
  SSH key path (optional): ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work
  Remote host (optional) [github.com]:

✔ Profile 'work' added successfully!

Switching Before Starting Work

$ cd ~/projects/company-api
$ git-user switch work
# → git config, gh auth, SSH alias routing, and origin owner all updated

$ git commit -m "feat: add endpoint"
# commit is authored as John Smith <john.smith@megacorp.com>

Listing Profiles

$ git-user list

  Profiles  (~/.git_user.conf)

  ● personal  John Doe <john@gmail.com> @johndoe
    work      John Smith <john.smith@megacorp.com> @john-megacorp

GitHub Enterprise / Self-hosted

Set remote_host to your enterprise instance:

$ git-user add enterprise
  Full name: John Smith
  Email: john@corp.internal
  GitHub username: jsmith
  Org name / repo owner [jsmith]: engineering
  SSH key path (optional):
  Remote host (optional) [github.com]: github.corp.internal

✔ Profile 'enterprise' added successfully!

Tips

• Shell alias — Add alias gu="git-user" to your .bashrc/.zshrc for faster switching.
• Multiple SSH keys — Each profile can point to a different SSH key. switch manages per-profile SSH host aliases in ~/.ssh/config and updates Git's global url.*.insteadOf rules so standard GitHub SSH remotes follow the active profile.
• Passphrase caching — On macOS, managed SSH aliases include AddKeysToAgent yes and UseKeychain yes so switched keys can be cached. Set GIT_USER_SSH_USE_KEYCHAIN=1 to force those directives in environments that support them.
• Edit the config directly — The .git_user.conf file is human-readable; feel free to edit it by hand.

License

MIT