claudini

CLI for switching between multiple Claude Code accounts on macOS.

Why

Claude Code doesn't support multiple accounts. If you use Claude Code with different accounts — say a personal one and a work one — switching means manually replacing ~/.claude.json and swapping the credential stored in the macOS Keychain. Do it wrong and you lose your config, break your session, or leak one account's credential into another.

claudini solves this by managing named profiles that bundle both the config file and the keychain credential. You switch accounts with a single command (claudini use work), and everything else — syncing shared settings, swapping credentials, updating symlinks — happens automatically. All credentials stay in the macOS Keychain; nothing is ever written to disk as plain text.

How it works

• Each profile stores its own claude.json on disk and its credential in the macOS Keychain
• ~/.claude.json becomes a symlink pointing to the active profile's claude.json
• On switch, the keychain credential is swapped and shared fields (projects, settings, usage history) are synced from the outgoing profile to the incoming one
• Account-specific fields (OAuth tokens, user ID, org caches) stay per-profile
• Credentials never touch the filesystem — they are read from and written to the Keychain directly

Storage layout

~/.claudini/
  config.json                  # { "active_profile": "personal" }
  profiles/
    personal/
      claude.json              # account-specific claude.json
    work/
      claude.json
  backups/
    before-upgrade/
      claude.json              # snapshot of ~/.claude.json
      claude/                  # snapshot of ~/.claude/ directory

macOS Keychain:
  "Claude Code-credentials"          # active credential (read by Claude Code)
  "claudini-profile-personal"        # personal profile credential
  "claudini-profile-work"            # work profile credential
  "claudini-backup-before-upgrade"   # backup credential

Installation

Quick install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kimrgrey/claudini/main/install.sh | sh

The script detects your Mac's architecture (Apple Silicon or Intel), downloads the matching binary from the latest GitHub Release, and installs it to /usr/local/bin/claudini.

To install to a custom location:

INSTALL_DIR=~/.local/bin curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kimrgrey/claudini/main/install.sh | sh

From GitHub Releases

Download the binary for your architecture from the latest release:

• Apple Silicon: claudini-aarch64-apple-darwin
• Intel: claudini-x86_64-apple-darwin

Then make it executable and move it to your PATH:

chmod +x claudini-*
mv claudini-* /usr/local/bin/claudini

From source

cargo install --path .

Or build locally:

cargo build --release
# binary at target/release/claudini

Usage

Before you start

Create a backup of your current Claude Code configuration before making any changes:

claudini backup create init

This saves a snapshot of your ~/.claude.json, keychain credential, and ~/.claude/ directory so you can restore if anything goes wrong.

First-time setup

claudini init

Creates the ~/.claudini/ directory structure and config.json. If already initialized, migrates any legacy plain text credential files to the Keychain.

Save your current account as a profile

claudini profile add personal

Reads the current ~/.claude.json and keychain credential, saves them as the personal profile, and replaces ~/.claude.json with a symlink.

Add a new account via OAuth login

claudini profile add --login work

Saves the current credential, clears auth, launches claude for interactive OAuth login, then saves the new account as the work profile.

Switch between profiles

claudini use work

Syncs shared fields, swaps the symlink and keychain credential. claudini use is a shortcut for claudini profile use.

To switch and immediately launch Claude Code in one step:

claudini work
# or equivalently:
claudini use work --launch
claudini use work -l

List profiles

claudini profile list

Shows all profiles in a table, with the active one marked.

Show current profile

claudini profile current

Prints the active profile name and associated email address.

Rename a profile

claudini profile rename work work-old

Renames a profile. If it's the active profile, the symlink and config are updated automatically.

Remove a profile

claudini profile remove work

Deletes a profile's stored data and its Keychain credential. Cannot remove the currently active profile.

Create a backup

claudini backup create before-upgrade

Saves a snapshot of ~/.claude.json, the keychain credential, and the ~/.claude/ directory.

Restore a backup

claudini backup restore before-upgrade

Replaces current config, credentials, and ~/.claude/ directory from the named backup.

Delete a backup

claudini backup delete before-upgrade

Deletes a backup's stored data and its Keychain credential.

List backups

claudini backup list

Shows all available backup names.

JSON output

All commands support --json for machine-readable output:

claudini --json profile list
claudini --json profile current
claudini --json backup list

Errors are returned as {"error": "..."}.

Testing without touching real config

Override the Claude home directory to test safely:

# Via CLI flag
claudini --claude-home /tmp/test-claude profile add test

# Via environment variable
export CLAUDINI_CLAUDE_HOME=/tmp/test-claude
claudini profile add test

When overridden, claudini looks for <claude-home>/.claude.json instead of ~/.claude.json.

Field sync details

When switching profiles, claudini copies shared fields from the outgoing profile to the incoming one. This keeps things like project configs, tips history, and settings consistent across accounts.

Account-specific fields (preserved per-profile): oauthAccount, userID, s1mAccessCache, groveConfigCache, passesEligibilityCache, hasShownOpus46Notice, cachedGrowthBookFeatures, cachedExtraUsageDisabledReason, penguinModeOrgEnabled, clientDataCache, claudeCodeFirstTokenDate, hasVisitedExtraUsage, hasVisitedPasses, passesLastSeenRemaining

Shared fields (synced on switch): everything else — projects, githubRepoPaths, tipsHistory, toolUsage, skillUsage, numStartups, installMethod, autoUpdates, hasCompletedOnboarding, etc.

Requirements

• macOS (uses macOS Keychain via the keyring crate with apple-native feature)
• Rust 1.70+
• claude CLI on PATH (for add --login and use --launch)