Per-project accounts

Put a .claude-profile file containing a profile name anywhere in a project tree. The nearest one wins, walking up from the current directory.

echo work > ~/projects/<project-name>/.claude-profile

Now cd anywhere under ~/projects/<project-name> selects the work profile automatically:

cd ~/projects/<project-name>/api
claude-profile

claude profile: work
config dir    : ~/.claude-profiles/work

Directories with no marker fall back to default.

One marker, many repos

Because the walk goes upward, a single marker above a group of repos covers all of them:

~/projects/<project-name>/
  .claude-profile        <- contains "work"
  api/                   -> work
  web/                   -> work
  infra/                 -> work

Placing it above the repos also means it does not need to be committed or gitignored.

Overriding for one repo

A marker deeper in the tree wins over one higher up:

~/projects/<project-name>/
  .claude-profile        <- "work"
  api/
  experiment/
    .claude-profile      <- "personal", wins inside experiment/

How it works

A shell hook (chpwd in zsh, PROMPT_COMMAND in bash) walks up from the current directory looking for the file and switches to the name inside it.

It is plain shell with an early-exit guard when the directory has not changed, so it costs nothing per prompt. It does not shell out to Python, which would add noticeable latency to every cd.

Already-running sessions are unaffected

CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR is read when claude launches. Switching profiles does not change a session that is already open - restart it.

Troubleshooting

cat ~/projects/<project-name>/.claude-profile   # should contain just the profile name
claude-profile                        # what is active right now?

Trailing whitespace is stripped, but the name must match a directory under ~/.claude-profiles exactly - it is case-sensitive.