Working on multiple GitHub accounts

Overview

Many of us have multiple GitHub accounts, such as a work account and a personal account. Sometimes, we need to work on these accounts on the same machine. In this blog post, we will introduce a setup that enables the machine to automatically load the right git configuration and SSH key when switching between projects from different GitHub accounts.

Create separate directories for different GitHub accounts

Create separate directories for each GitHub account. For example:

• ~/github/work: for your work GitHub account projects
• ~/github/personal: for your personal GitHub account projects

Generate key pair for each GitHub account

For each GitHub account, generate an SSH key pair and add the public key to the respective GitHub account using the GitHub Docs guide.

Configure .gitconfig

If it doesn’t exist already, create .gitconfig file in your $HOME folder and add the following content to it. The configuration file is self-explanatory and instructs Git to read a child config file based on the current working directory. You git also include shared configuration in this file.

[url "git@github.com:"]
    insteadOf = https://github.com/
[includeIf "gitdir:~/github/work/"]
    path = ~/.gitconfig-work
[includeIf "gitdir:~/github/personal/"]
    path = ~/.gitconfig-personal

~/.gitconfig

Next, create the child config files. Typically, you will have different user names, email addresses, and SSH keys for each GitHub account. These details can be specified in the respective child configs.

[user]
	name = chris-work
	email = work@gmail.com
[commit]
	gpgSign = true
[core]
    sshCommand = "ssh -i ~/.ssh/work_key"

~/.gitconfig-work

[user]
	name = chris-personal
	email = personal@gmail.com
[commit]
	gpgSign = false
[core]
    sshCommand = "ssh -i ~/.ssh/personal_key"

~/.gitconfig-personal

⚠️ NOTE

If you have to use git inside a devcontainer, this approach will not work because devcontainer does not know how to copy those child configuration files (~/.gitconfig-*) to the container.

Read this for some workaround ideas.

Verify the setup

Let’s verify the setup:

1. Go to ~/github/work/
2. Run mkdir new-work-repo; cd new-work-repo; git init
3. Run git config -l, and the output should display the work-related configuration.

Repeat the same steps for the personal account folder, and verify git config -l returns personal-related configuration

Summary

With this setup, Git will automatically load the appropriate configuration and SSH key based on the current working directory, making it easier to work with multiple GitHub accounts on the same machine.

Feel free to adapt this setup to your specific needs and enjoy working seamlessly with your multiple GitHub accounts!