Using Personal vs Work GitHub Accounts

This guide helps you access your personal GitHub account from your work terminal, while keeping it completely separate from your work GitHub account.

✅ Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Generate SSH Key for Personal GitHub

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your-personal-email@example.com" -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal

2. Add Your Personal Key to the SSH Agent

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal

Your work key (~/.ssh/id_ed25519) is typically already managed by your system or ssh-agent.

3. Add the Public Key to Your Personal GitHub

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal.pub

Go to GitHub SSH Key Settings and add your personal key.

4. Edit `~/.ssh/config` to Define Both Accounts

# Work GitHub (default key)
Host github.com
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
  IdentitiesOnly yes

# Personal GitHub (alias with separate key)
Host github-personal
  HostName github.com
  User git
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal
  IdentitiesOnly yes

5. Clone Personal Repositories Using Alias

git clone git@github-personal:your-username/your-repo.git

6. Set Git Identity for Personal Repositories

git config user.name "Your Personal Name"
git config user.email "your-personal-email@example.com"

This ensures your commits use your personal identity only in that repo.

🧠 Bonus (Optional): Shell Alias for Personal Git Commands

Add to your ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc:

alias git-personal='GIT_SSH_COMMAND="ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_personal" git'

Then clone like this:

git-personal clone git@github.com:your-username/repo.git