Working with multiple GitHub profiles and switching them continuously is a tedious task. Switching between multiple GitHub profiles requires the following steps:

1. Removing existing identity
2. Add current identity (location to current identity file i.e. stored in .ssh directory)
3. Config user name and user email
4. Verify current profile.

Now, in order to add a new SSH identity, you can follow this blog:

Generating a new SSH key and adding it to the ssh-agent - GitHub Docs

You can create new identity and add newly created identity in config file. I’ve added 2 identities and a sample config file will looks like this:

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# Account 1 (work) - the default config
Host github.com
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/priamry_file_name
  
# Account 2 (personal) - the config we are adding
Host github.com-PersonalAccount
  HostName github.com/PersonalAccount
  User PersonalAccount
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/secondary_file_name

Suppose you have multiple projects associated with different GitHub accounts. You can switch between accounts using the following commands:

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➜  ~ ssh-add -D
➜  ~ ssh-add ~/.ssh/YOUR_ID_SSH_FILE_NAME # This command will prompt for your GitHub password
➜  ~ git config user.name 'GITHUB_USER_NAME'
➜  ~ git config user.email 'GITHUB_EMAIL'

To check whether we’ve set proper GitHub account, we can fire following command in terminal:

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➜  ~ ssh -T git@github.com

# The output will look something like this:
# Hi GITHUB_USER_NAME! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.

Manually executing all these commands every time you switch to a different GitHub account can be tiresome. However, we’re developers 🧑🏼‍💻, and we can simplify this process.

I’ve created a bash function and stored it in my .zshrc file. This code allows you to effortlessly switch between profiles:

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profile() {
  echo "Removing All Identities"
  ssh-add -D

  echo -n "Enter Profile (root / work): "
  read -n profile
  echo ""

  if [[ "$profile" == "personal" ]]; then
    ssh-add ~/.ssh/secondary_file_name
    git config user.name 'PERSONAL_GITHUB_USER_NAME'
    git config user.email "PERSONAL_GITHUB_EMAIL"
    echo ""
    ssh -T git@github.com
  elif [[ "$profile" == "work" ]]; then
    ssh-add ~/.ssh/priamry_file_name
    git config user.name 'WORK_GITHUB_USER_NAME'
    git config user.email "WORK_GITHUB_EMAIL"
    echo ""
    ssh -T git@github.com
  else
    echo "Wrong Profile!"
  fi
}

To use this function, simply modify the SSH file names and your GitHub configurations (username and email). Afterward, invoking the profile command will handle the rest. Cheers! 🍻