Multiple github account management with ssh

Sometimes it is hard to manage multiple GitHub accounts and deal with conflicts when cloning and pushing code. For example, if we have three accounts, we can follow these steps:

Example:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "personal@email.com" -f ~/.ssh/github_personal
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "work@email.com" -f ~/.ssh/github_work
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "school@email.com" -f ~/.ssh/github_school

You will get:

~/.ssh/github_personal
~/.ssh/github_personal.pub

~/.ssh/github_work
~/.ssh/github_work.pub

~/.ssh/github_school
~/.ssh/github_school.pub

Upload each .pub key to the correct GitHub account.

Clean SSH config

Edit:

nano ~/.ssh/config

Add:

Host github.com-personal
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/github_personal
    IdentitiesOnly yes

Host github.com-work
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/github_work
    IdentitiesOnly yes

Host github.com-school
    HostName github.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/github_school
    IdentitiesOnly yes

---

Create a repo folder structure

Example:

~/dev/personal/
~/dev/work/
~/dev/school/

---

Clone repos normally but change the host

Personal:

git clone git@github.com-personal:<owner>/<repo-name>.git

Work:

git clone git@github.com-work:<owner>/<repo-name>.git

School:

git clone git@github.com-school:<owner>/<repo-name>.git

---

Automatic Git identity (the magic part)

Edit your global git config:

nano ~/.gitconfig

Add:

[user]
    name = Your Name
    email = personal@email.com

[includeIf "gitdir:~/dev/work/"]
    path = ~/.gitconfig-work

[includeIf "gitdir:~/dev/school/"]
    path = ~/.gitconfig-school

---

Work Git config

Create:

nano ~/.gitconfig-work

[user]
    name = Your Work Name
    email = work@email.com

---

School Git config

nano ~/.gitconfig-school

[user]
    name = Your Name
    email = school@email.com

---

Result

Folder	GitHub account used
~/dev/personal	personal
~/dev/work	work
~/dev/school	school

So when you:

cd ~/dev/work/project
git commit

Git automatically uses your work email + SSH key.

No switching accounts. No confusion.

Test SSH connections:

ssh -T git@github.com-personal
ssh -T git@github.com-work
ssh -T git@github.com-school