~/

How I Manage Multiple Git Profiles

gitdev-setup
avatar
Prabhat Kumar Sahu
https://x.com/thecaffeinedev

Since I sometimes use my personal laptop for both personal and work projects, I used to set up git config for each project folder individually. I was constantly configuring the right profile to avoid commit mix-ups, and it was getting old.

I know Git supports conditional includes, but I thought it would be a good opportunity for a side project. I had the idea to build a CLI tool that can automatically detect what I'm working on, switch Git profiles, manage SSH keys, and maybe even integrate with the shell.

But then I thought—why make it complicated when there’s a simple way to solve it?

What I was dealing with

I have got three different setups:

  • Personal stuff (personal-stuff on GitHub)
  • Office Internal projects
  • Office Client projects

Each one needs different name, email, SSH keys.

Setting Up The Config

Took me like 10 minutes total.

First I just organized my folders better:

~/dev/personal/      -  hobby projects
~/dev/office-work/   -  work stuff  
~/dev/office-client/ -  client work

Then I made separate config files for work and clients:

~/.gitconfig-office-work:

[user]
    name = "Prabhat Kumar"
    email = "prabhat@work-office.com"

~/.gitconfig-office-client:

[user]
    name = "Prabhat"
    email = "Prabhat@work-client.com"

Then added these lines to my main git config:

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

[includeIf "gitdir:~/dev/office-client/**"]
    path = ~/.gitconfig-office-client

That's it. The /** part means any git repo in that folder.

SSH was already working

I already had different SSH hosts set up:

Host github.com
   User thecaffeinedev
   IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_personal_github

Host office-git
   HostName github.com
   User office-user
   IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_office_internal

So I just use different URLs when cloning.

Testing it

cd ~/dev/personal/some-project
git config user.email
# Shows: iprabhatdev@gmail.com

cd ~/dev/office-work/work-project  
git config user.email
# Shows: prabhat@work-office.com"

Works just fine.

Why I was avoiding this

Honestly? I think I just wanted to build something. The simple solution felt too easy, like I wasn't really solving the problem.

But having organized folders is actually better anyway. Now I know exactly where everything is.

End Notes

Sometimes the boring solution is the right one. Git's conditional includes do exactly what I need and I don't have to maintain some custom tool.