Maintain Separate GitHub accounts

Someone recently commented that with Github it is "a pain if you want to have a work and personal identity."

It is? I've had separate work and personal Github accounts for years. I thought everyone knew this trick.

When I clone a URL like [email protected]:TomOnTime/tomutils.git I simply change github to either github-home or github-work. Then I have my ~/.ssh/config file set with those two names configured to use different keys:

# TomOnTime
Host home-github.com
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa-githubpersonal
  PreferredAuthentications publickey
  PasswordAuthentication no
  IdentitiesOnly yes

# tlimoncelli
Host work-github.com
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa-githubwork
  PreferredAuthentications publickey
  PasswordAuthentication no
  IdentitiesOnly yes

I also have things set up so that if I leave the name alone, my work-owned machines default to the work key, and my personal machines default to my personal key.

As far as the web user interface, rather than switching between accounts by logging out and logging back in all the time, I simply use Chrome's multi-user feature. Each user profile has its own cookie jar, maintains its own set of bookmarks, color themes, and so on. One user is my "work" profile. It is green (work==money==green), has bookmarks that are work-related, and is logged into my work Github account. The other is my "home" profile. It is blue (I live in a blue house), has my personal bookmarks, and is logged into my personal Github account.

Having each profile be a very different color makes it very easy to tell which profile I am in. This prevents me from accidentally using my work profile for personal use or vice-versa.

I know some people do something similar by using different browsers but I like this a lot more.

Once I set this up using multiple accounts on Github was easy!