Hamza Rehman Releases 'claude-account' for Multi-Profile Claude Code Switching

Developer Hamza Rehman has released 'claude-account,' an open-source command-line interface (CLI) tool that enables users to switch between multiple Claude Code accounts. The tool targets developers on Linux and macOS who must toggle between professional and personal profiles without the friction of repeated authentication.

Operating as a shim, claude-account forwards commands to the official Claude executable while managing isolated configuration and credential-storage directories for each profile. This architecture ensures that each account remains distinct. To maintain this isolation, the tool explicitly removes authentication environment variables—including ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN, and CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN—from child processes, forcing the system to use the selected profile's specific credentials.

Users manage their profiles through a set of dedicated commands: 'add' to create a new account, 'use' to switch active profiles, 'list' to view all saved accounts, 'current' to identify the active session, and 'remove' to delete a profile. On macOS, the tool requires Claude Code version 2.1.144 or later to ensure compatibility with profile-scoped Keychain credentials.

Solving Multi-Tenant Friction

Claude Code, Anthropic's CLI for AI-assisted coding, typically manages a single authenticated session per machine. For developers maintaining separate organizational and personal accounts, the default behavior requires a manual logout and login process every time they switch contexts. This creates a significant workflow disruption for power users who frequently move between different billing accounts or permission sets.

By automating the isolation of configuration directories, claude-account introduces a 'multi-tenant' experience similar to how developers manage multiple AWS or Git profiles. This allows for seamless context switching while maintaining a high security posture; the tool does not read or copy credential contents, instead relying entirely on Claude Code's official login, logout, and token refresh flows.

Future Outlook

As AI-integrated development environments become more central to the software engineering workflow, the demand for sophisticated identity management in the CLI is likely to grow. While claude-account currently supports Linux and macOS, users will be watching to see if similar profile-management capabilities are integrated directly into the official Claude Code release or expanded to other operating systems. For now, the tool provides a critical bridge for developers seeking a more flexible way to manage their Anthropic identities.