textaccounts 0.4.1

Manage multiple Claude Code accounts with full directory isolation

textaccounts

Manage multiple Claude Code accounts with full directory isolation. Each profile is a complete ~/.claude/ config directory — sessions, memory, settings, and auth stay separate.

Why?

Claude Code stores everything in a single directory tree (~/.claude/). If you use multiple accounts (work + personal), you need separate directories. textaccounts registers and switches between them by setting CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR.

Install

pip install textaccounts

Then install shell integration:

textaccounts install

This writes a fish function and completions to ~/.config/fish/. Open a new shell to activate.

Quick start

# Register existing directories — nothing is moved or copied
textaccounts adopt work ~/.claude-work
textaccounts adopt personal ~/.claude-personal

# Switch profile (sets CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR in your shell)
textaccounts switch work

# Check status
textaccounts status

# Interactive view
textaccounts view

Commands

textaccounts list                        # show all profiles
textaccounts status                      # active profile + sync state
textaccounts adopt <name> <path>         # register an existing dir
textaccounts create <name>               # snapshot current config dir
textaccounts create <name> --worker \
  --from <parent>                        # auth-only copy for parallel work
textaccounts create <name> \
  --clone-from <src>                     # clone setup (auth+settings+agents+hooks+plugins),
                                         # strip state (sessions/projects/history/caches)
textaccounts switch <name>               # switch profile (sets CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR)
textaccounts show <name>                 # print shell command without executing
textaccounts rename <old> <new>          # rename a profile
textaccounts alias <profile> <alias>     # add a shorthand alias
textaccounts describe <name> [text]      # set/clear a per-profile description (omit text to clear)
textaccounts desc                        # print current profile's description (for statuslines)
textaccounts view                        # interactive profile view
textaccounts install [--shell fish]      # install shell integration

Per-profile descriptions

Each profile can carry a free-text description (a one-liner like "day job" or "hobby + paperworlds"). It shows up:

• In the interactive view bottom bar when a profile is highlighted (n to edit)
• In your Claude Code statusline via textaccounts desc, which resolves the description for the current CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR — so subprocesses launched by tools like textsessions show the right description automatically

Wire it into your statusline script:

ta_desc=$(textaccounts desc 2>/dev/null)
[ -n "$ta_desc" ] && parts+=("$ta_desc")

Interactive view

textaccounts view provides a Textual TUI for managing profiles:

Key	Action
s	Switch to selected profile
a	Adopt a new directory
r	Rename selected profile
l	Edit aliases
n	Edit description (shown in bottom bar)
q	Quit

Auto-discovers unregistered ~/.claude*/ directories and shows them as adoption suggestions.

Config

Profiles are stored in ~/.textaccounts/profiles.yaml:

version: '1.0'
active: work

profiles:
  work:
    path: /Users/you/.claude-work
    email: yo***@company.com
    adopted: 2026-04-12T10:00:00Z
    worker: false
    description: day job
  personal:
    path: /Users/you/.claude-personal
    email: y***@gmail.com
    adopted: 2026-04-12T10:00:00Z
    worker: false
    description: hobby projects
    aliases:
      - p

defaults:
  profiles_dir: ~/.textaccounts/profiles

New profiles created with textaccounts create go into ~/.textaccounts/profiles/.

How it works

textaccounts switch sets CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR in your shell via a fish function that evals the output of textaccounts show. A Python subprocess can't modify the parent shell's environment directly — the fish function bridges that gap.

Claude Code reads CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR natively. No patches, no wrappers around claude itself.

Public API

textaccounts.api is the stable import surface for tools that integrate with textaccounts (see textsessions for an example consumer). Functions: available, list_profiles, active_profile, profile_dir, env_for_profile, profile_description. Full contract: docs/specs/textaccounts-api.md.

Roadmap

• Publish to PyPI (under Paperworlds org — account TBD)
• Upgrade to Python 3.13
• d key in view to remove/unregister a profile
• Bash/zsh shell integration (currently fish only)

[!NOTE] Part of Paperworlds

textaccounts is part of Paperworlds — an open org building tools and games around AI agents and text interfaces.

License

MIT