Managing Multiple Git Identities on One Machine Without Losing Your Mind

Chaitany Kulkarni — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 18:14:45 +0000

If you work on personal projects and also use an official Git account for work, all on the same machine, this problem probably sounds familiar.

Two Git identities.
One PC.
And constant confusion.

I kept running into situations where commits were made with the wrong identity.
Personal email in a work repo.
Work email in a personal project.

At first, it felt manageable.

I tried changing Git users.
I tried tweaking SSH config files.
I tried being extra careful before every commit.

It still felt fragile. One small mistake, and the wrong identity showed up in the repository history.

After dealing with this for a while, I realized the problem wasn’t Git itself.
It was the workflow.

I wanted a simple and predictable way to switch Git identities without editing config files every time or guessing which identity was active.

So I built a small CLI tool called BGIT.

BGIT uses SSH keys only and manages Git identities in a clean way.
You switch identities using simple commands, and everything stays consistent across repositories.

What I focused on while building it:

Clear identity switching

No repeated manual configuration

Predictable behavior

Minimal setup

This tool is for developers who:

Use personal and work Git accounts on the same machine

Want to avoid manual Git configuration changes

Prefer simple CLI workflows

If your current setup works perfectly for you, you probably don’t need this.

BGIT is open source.
I built it to solve my own problem and decided to share it in case it helps others facing the same issue.

You can find it here:
https://bgit.byterings.com/

DEV Community: Chaitany Kulkarni

Managing Multiple Git Identities on One Machine Without Losing Your Mind