Switchboard for Claude Code

Several Claude Code accounts. One editor. Always know how much you have left.

Switch accounts per window or per repository, and see each account's 5-hour and 7-day plan limits right in the status bar.

---

Why Switchboard

One account per window	Work and personal side by side, in two windows, at the same time.
Remembers each repo	Open a repository and its account is applied for you.
Plan limits at a glance	5-hour and 7-day usage for every account, before you hit the wall.
Your ~/.claude stays untouched	It becomes the Default account and is never moved, deleted or overwritten.

Get started in a minute

1. Click Claude: default in the status bar → Add account…
2. Name it and choose a profile:
   • Shared: reuses your settings, CLAUDE.md, agents, skills and plugins and keeps its own login.
   • Isolated: everything separate.
3. Choose Log in. A terminal opens and runs claude auth login for that account (with the CLI bundled in the Claude Code extension when claude is not on PATH).
4. Switch any time from the status bar. The window reloads so Claude Code picks up the change.

Run /status in the Claude Code panel to confirm which account is active.

Features

Accounts

• Per-window accounts that run at the same time
• Default account per repository, keyed by its git remote, so every clone shares it
• Rules: every repo under ~/work/**, or from github.com/my-company/*, uses a given account
• Quick toggle between the last two accounts: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+A (Cmd+Alt+Shift+A on macOS)
• The integrated terminal's claude CLI uses the same account as the panel

Usage

• 5-hour and 7-day plan limits per account, in the status bar, tooltip and picker
• Tokens used today, over 7 and 30 days and all time, with what it would cost at API prices. Daily totals are kept, so the history outlasts Claude Code's log cleanup.
• When you hit a limit, Switchboard offers to switch to another account in one click

Artifacts from any account

• A claude.ai artifact opens only in a browser logged into the account that published it. Switchboard previews artifacts that Claude Code publishes from local files on http://127.0.0.1:4999, from every account, with no login and live reload. Design canvases show their boards: pan, zoom, fit.
• Each new artifact opens in the local preview by itself (or, with artifactPreviewAutoOpen off, a notification offers it). All of them are listed in More > Artifacts.

Personal touch

• E-mail, plan (e.g. Pro, Max 20x) and organization for each account
• Own color, icon or emoji, and optional picture per account
• Per-account environment variables, such as a default model or proxy, kept locally
• Settings Sync carries names, colors and repo defaults to your other machines. Logins stay local.

Settings

Setting	Default	What it does
claudeAccounts.scope	workspace	workspace: each window or repo remembers its account. user: one account everywhere.
claudeAccounts.accountsRoot	~/.claude-accounts	Where account folders live.
claudeAccounts.sharedItems	settings, CLAUDE.md, agents…	What shared-profile accounts reuse from ~/.claude.
claudeAccounts.shareHistory	false	Shared conversation history. Change it with the Share history command so existing history is merged.
claudeAccounts.historyItems	projects, history.jsonl…	What counts as history.
claudeAccounts.autoApplyRepoDefault	true	Apply the repository's account when it opens.
claudeAccounts.reloadBehavior	always	Reload after switching: ask, always or never. A reload closes the open Claude Code conversation and terminals.
claudeAccounts.planLimits	true	Show the 5-hour and 7-day plan limits.
claudeAccounts.applyToTerminal	true	Use the account in integrated terminals too.
claudeAccounts.loginCommand	claude auth login	Command used to log in.
claudeAccounts.statusBarStyle	name	name, initials or icon.
claudeAccounts.showPlan	true	Show the plan name.
claudeAccounts.rules	[]	Default-account rules, see below.
claudeAccounts.artifactPreview	true	Local artifact preview.
claudeAccounts.artifactPreviewAutoOpen	true	Open each new artifact's preview automatically.
claudeAccounts.artifactPreviewPort	4999	Port of the preview.
claudeAccounts.suggestSwitchOnLimit	true	Offer a switch when you hit a limit.
claudeAccounts.gravatar	false	Gravatar pictures in the picker.

Rules

Rules are checked in order for any repository without its own default:

"claudeAccounts.rules": [
  { "pattern": "github.com/my-company/*", "account": "work" },
  { "pattern": "~/personal/**", "account": "Personal" }
]

A pattern that starts with ~, / or a drive letter matches the folder path. Anything else matches the git remote. * matches one segment and ** matches any depth. account is the account's id or its name.

How it works

Claude Code reads its configuration folder from CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR. Each account is a folder under ~/.claude-accounts/. Switchboard sets that variable for the window, and for its terminals, before Claude Code starts. That is why it activates on startup.

Shared items are links. On Windows, folders use junctions, which need no admin rights.

Known limitations

• Don't set CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR in claudeCode.environmentVariables. It overrides switching everywhere. Switchboard detects this and offers to remove it.
• If /status shows the wrong account right after startup, reload the window once.
• If a tool replaces a shared file instead of editing it, the link breaks. Switchboard offers Relink and keeps a .bak copy.
• On macOS, logins live in the Keychain, so the plan may not show.
• The artifact preview shows files as they are on disk. Dynamic parts of design pages (loops, conditions, imports) are simplified, files uploaded to claude.ai are not shown, and artifacts in a session scratchpad disappear when Windows cleans its temp folder.
• Plan limits, usage and artifact detection rely on undocumented Claude Code formats and may break after updates.

Privacy

• No telemetry. Nothing is collected about you.
• Plan limits. To read your limits, Switchboard takes the account's Claude Code login token from .credentials.json and asks api.anthropic.com for the account's usage, the same way Claude Code's /usage does. No tokens are used. Only if that fails does it fall back to a one-token request, whose response headers carry the limits. The login token goes only to Anthropic and is never stored or shown. Turn this off with claudeAccounts.planLimits.
• Artifact preview. The preview server listens only on 127.0.0.1 and accepts only requests addressed to 127.0.0.1 or localhost. It serves just the folders of published artifacts, never hidden files such as .env.
• Gravatar (off by default) sends a SHA-256 hash of the account's e-mail to gravatar.com.

Requirements

• VS Code 1.85+, or Cursor, VSCodium or Windsurf
• The official Claude Code extension

Credits

Switchboard is a fork of Multi-Account Switcher for Claude Code by Kahuê Costa, who built the account switching. The plan-limit display was inspired by Claude Status by Small Long and Claude Code Usage Bar by Vincenzo Vitale. Thank you all.

License

MIT. The license file keeps the original copyright notices.

_{Switchboard is a community project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic. "Claude" and "Claude Code" are trademarks of Anthropic, PBC.}