Dwa konta GitHub, jeden komputer
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Two GitHub accounts, one computer · step 1 of 6

How it works

The mechanism: includeIf in gitconfig, plus a separate SSH key per folder.

The problem

You have two GitHub accounts (user1, user2) and two project folders on the same machine, e.g.:

D:\Projects\user1\
D:\Projects\user2\

The drive letter (D:, G:, C:…) doesn’t matter — it’s just an example. The whole mechanism relies on the folder path, not a specific drive. Use your own letter and folder layout, substituting it consistently in the steps below.

You want git push from the user1 folder to always go to the user1 account, and pushes from user2 to go to user2 — without manually switching accounts in the browser or in your editor.

Why .gitconfig alone isn’t enough

.gitconfig with includeIf only sets the identity attached to commits (user.name, user.email) — who shows up as the author. It does not set the credentials used when pushing. If you sign in over HTTPS (e.g. through the GitHub extension in VS Code), Git will keep using one cached OAuth token regardless of what user.email your config says.

The fix: SSH + a separate key per folder

Instead of HTTPS, we use SSH. Each GitHub account gets its own SSH key pair, and Git — based on the folder you’re working in — automatically picks the right key for every connection to GitHub.

The mechanism has three layers:

  1. includeIf "gitdir:..." in the main ~/.gitconfig — tells Git “if you’re working inside this folder, also load this extra config file”.
  2. A separate config file per account (.gitconfig-user1, .gitconfig-user2) — sets user.name, user.email, and core.sshCommand pointing at a specific SSH key.
  3. The repository remote in SSH form (git@github.com:user/repo.git) — so Git actually uses SSH instead of HTTPS.

End result: you cd into a folder, run git push, and Git silently picks the right key and the right identity — automatically.

The following pages walk through this step by step for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Steps 1–2 (generating keys, configuring gitconfig) are identical on every system — only file locations and how you run the SSH agent differ.