claude-multi

A CLI tool that automates the multiple-Claude-accounts setup so you can run two (or more) Claude Code sessions simultaneously in separate terminal tabs — each with its own isolated login session.

Install

npm install -g claude-code-multi

Quick start

# 1. Run the interactive setup (animated!)
claude-multi setup

# 2. Reload your shell
source ~/.zshrc   # or source ~/.bashrc

# 3. Authenticate each account (do this once per account)
claude-personal   # launches Claude → run /login
claude-work       # launches Claude → run /login

# 4. Code in parallel — open two terminal tabs:
#   Tab 1: claude-personal
#   Tab 2: claude-work

Both sessions are 100% isolated — separate logins, separate history, separate settings.

Commands

| Command | Aliases | What it does | |---|---|---| | claude-multi setup | install | Animated setup: names your accounts, writes shell aliases to .zshrc | | claude-multi add [name] | new, create | Add another account | | claude-multi list | ls | Show all accounts and whether each is logged in | | claude-multi remove <name> | rm | Delete an account and its config dir | | claude-multi uninstall | | Remove all managed aliases from .zshrc / .bashrc | | claude-multi help | --help, -h | Show usage |

How it works

Claude Code stores its login session in ~/.claude by default. Set CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR to any path and Claude uses that directory instead — completely independent from any other account.

claude-multi setup automates all the manual steps:

1. Finds your real claude binary path automatically
2. Creates ~/.claude-multi/<name>/ for each account
3. Writes shell aliases to .zshrc / .bashrc:

alias claude-personal='CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude-multi/personal /usr/local/bin/claude'
alias claude-work='CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude-multi/work /usr/local/bin/claude'
alias claude='echo "Use a specific account: claude-personal, claude-work"'

The last alias overrides bare claude with a helpful reminder so you never accidentally launch the wrong account.

Running accounts in parallel

Open two terminal tabs and run a different account in each:

Tab 1                           Tab 2
─────────────────────────────── ───────────────────────────────
$ claude-personal               $ claude-work
> working on side project       > working on client code
  completely isolated session     completely isolated session

Both run simultaneously. One account hitting a rate limit doesn't affect the other — just switch tabs and keep going.

Add more accounts

claude-multi add freelance
source ~/.zshrc
claude-freelance   # then /login

Per-project default account

Add this to your project's .env (works with direnv or similar):

CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude-multi/work

Claude Code will automatically use the work account in that project.

Uninstall

# Remove aliases from .zshrc / .bashrc
claude-multi uninstall

# Remove all account data (optional)
rm -rf ~/.claude-multi

# Remove the npm package
npm uninstall -g claude-code-multi

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests welcome at GitHub.

Keep it plain JavaScript (ESM), no build step, minimal dependencies.

License

MIT