ccm — Run Multiple Claude Code Accounts on One Machine

Claude Code multi-account / profile manager for Windows, macOS and Linux. Keep your work and personal Claude accounts fully separated on the same computer — each profile gets its own login, settings, plugins, MCP servers and conversation history, plus its own launcher command:

ccm add personal   →  claude-personal
ccm add work       →  claude-work

Two terminals, two accounts, side by side. No logging in and out, no shared history, no mixed billing. Zero dependencies, Node.js >= 18, MIT licensed.

Why?

Claude Code stores everything (OAuth login, settings, plugins, MCP servers, projects history) in a single per-user config. If you have two Anthropic accounts — company and personal, or one per client — switching means logging out and back in, and everything else (plugins, MCP, history) stays mixed.

ccm fixes that with the official CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR mechanism: one folder per profile under ~/.ccm/profiles/<name>, and a tiny generated claude-<name> launcher that points Claude Code at it. Nothing is patched, proxied or reverse-engineered — each launcher is a few lines of shell script you can read.

Quick start

npm install -g ccm-claude
ccm setup-path        # adds ~/.ccm/bin to your PATH (once) — then open a new terminal

ccm add work          # create the profile + claude-work launcher
claude-work           # first run: log in with your work account — done

Run claude-work for work, plain claude (or another profile) for everything else. Both can run at the same time.

Commands

| Command | What it does | |---|---| | ccm add <name> | Create an isolated profile and its claude-<name> launcher | | ccm add <name> --link-default | Launcher for your original installation, unchanged (same account/data) | | ccm add <name> --copy-default | Seed the profile with a copy of your original (settings, plugins, history, login), then independent | | ccm list | All profiles + login state | | ccm where <name> | Print the exact folder holding the profile's data (alias: ccm path) | | ccm run <name> [args...] | Run a profile without the launcher/PATH | | ccm token <name> | Store a long-lived OAuth token (older macOS Claude Code or headless use — see below) | | ccm update | Update the shared claude binary — all profiles get it | | ccm remove <name> [--purge] | Remove the launcher (and with --purge, the data) | | ccm setup-path | Add ~/.ccm/bin to your PATH permanently | | ccm doctor | Check installation, PATH and profiles |

Launcher arguments pass straight through to Claude Code: claude-work --resume, claude-personal -p "explain this repo", etc.

How it works

• Each profile folder is a CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR: credentials (.credentials.json, or a per-profile macOS Keychain item), settings.json, .claude.json, plugins, MCP registrations, projects/ history — all isolated per profile.
• Launchers are npm-style shims: .cmd + .ps1 + sh on Windows (works from CMD, PowerShell and Git Bash), a single #!/bin/sh script on macOS/Linux.
• Updates are shared and safe: every launcher runs the same claude binary, so one update (auto-update of your original installation, brew upgrade, or ccm update) upgrades all profiles at once. Profile launchers set DISABLE_AUTOUPDATER=1, so concurrent instances never race to modify the shared binary — a real crash scenario on Windows. Plugins and marketplaces are per profile, so launchers also set FORCE_AUTOUPDATE_PLUGINS=1: each profile keeps auto-updating its own plugin catalog even though the binary does not self-update.
• Your original installation is never touched. --link-default uses no symlinks, so even ccm remove --purge cannot reach your real ~/.claude.

~/.ccm/
  bin/                  generated launchers (on your PATH)
  profiles/work/        CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR for "work"
  profiles/personal/    CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR for "personal"

macOS: two accounts at once

/login inside each profile is all you need on every platform. On Windows and Linux the credentials land inside the profile folder; on macOS, current Claude Code releases give each CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR its own Keychain item (Claude Code-credentials-<hash of the folder>), so claude-work and plain claude keep separate logins. ccm list reads the Keychain (item attributes only, never the secret) to report each profile's login state.

ccm token remains for two cases: Claude Code releases from before per-profile Keychain items, and headless/CI setups where an interactive login is not possible:

claude setup-token     # log in as the account you want, copy the token
ccm token work         # paste it — stored in the profile with 0600 perms
ccm token work --clear # back to /login

The claude-work launcher then exports it as CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN. Keep in mind that such a token can only make model requests: claude.ai connectors (MCP servers enabled in your claude.ai account) don't load with it. Prefer /login whenever you need those.

FAQ

Does this violate anything? No — CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR is Claude Code's documented, supported way to relocate its configuration. ccm just manages the folders and launchers for you.

How do I check which account a session uses? Type /status inside the session, or run ccm list to see the login state of every profile.

Can profiles have different plugins / MCP servers? Yes — that's the point. Everything user-scoped is per profile. Project-scoped files (.claude/ inside a repo) are shared, as they should be.

Does my existing setup survive? Untouched. Profiles live in ~/.ccm, your original ~/.claude stays where it is. Use --link-default if you want a launcher for it, or --copy-default to fork it into a new profile.

Uninstall? npm uninstall -g ccm-claude, delete ~/.ccm, remove the PATH entry.

Install from source? git clone https://github.com/carlostheory/claude-multi-account.git && cd claude-multi-account && npm install -g .

Development

npm test    # 52 tests: sandboxed end-to-end CLI runs + the generated
            # launchers executed through real cmd.exe / PowerShell / Git Bash

The test suite never touches your real ~/.claude or ~/.ccm — see test/helpers.js.

Keywords: Claude Code multiple accounts, Claude Code profile manager, switch Claude accounts, work and personal Claude Code, CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR, Claude Code Windows macOS Linux, Anthropic CLI multi-account.