zit

A folder-based Git identity manager. Associate workspace folders with Git accounts — SSH keys, author name, and email are applied automatically to every repo inside.

No manual switching. No ssh-agent. No shell hooks. Uses git's native includeIf to make it work everywhere — terminal, VS Code, JetBrains, any git client.

How It Works

1. Register your git accounts with zit add
2. Create workspace folders linked to accounts with zit workspace init
3. Clone repos inside workspace folders with zit clone
4. After that, git push, git pull, git commit — everything uses the correct identity automatically

Under the hood, zit uses:

• includeIf "gitdir:" — git's native conditional config that auto-loads identity settings based on repo location
• core.sshCommand — tells git which SSH key to use, no ssh-agent needed

Installation

npm install -g @hypercodingdev/zit

Requires Node.js >= 18, git, and ssh-keygen.

After installing, run this to enable tab completion (recommended):

zit completion --install

This adds auto-complete to your shell so you can type zit <tab> to see commands, zit remove <tab> to see account names, etc. Restart your shell or run source ~/.zshrc (or ~/.bashrc) to activate.

Quick Start

# Register an account
zit add
# Account name: work
# Git user name: John Doe
# Git email: john@company.com
# → Generates SSH key, prints public key to paste into GitHub/GitLab

# Create a workspace folder linked to that account
zit workspace init ~/work work
# → Creates ~/work/, configures git includeIf

# Clone a repo inside the workspace
cd ~/work
zit clone git@github.com:my-org/my-repo.git

# From now on, git just works — no zit needed
cd ~/work/my-repo
git commit -m "uses work identity automatically"
git push  # uses work SSH key automatically

Commands

All commands have short aliases for convenience.

Command	Alias	Description
zit add		Register a new git account
zit remove <account>	zit rm	Remove an account and SSH keys
zit list	zit ls	List all registered accounts
zit workspace <sub>	zit wsp	Manage workspace folders
zit clone <url>		Clone with workspace SSH key
zit status		Show current workspace info
zit completion		Output shell completion script
zit uninstall		Remove all zit data and configs

zit add

Register a new git account interactively. Generates an SSH keypair.

zit add              # default: ed25519
zit add -t rsa       # specify key type

Supported key types: ed25519 (default), rsa, ecdsa, ecdsa-sk, ed25519-sk, dsa

zit remove <account>

Remove an account and its SSH keys. Alias: zit rm

zit remove work
zit remove work --force  # also removes linked workspaces

zit list

List all registered accounts with their emails. Alias: zit ls

$ zit list
Registered accounts:

  personal    john@personal.com
  work        john@company.com

zit workspace init <path> <account>

Create a workspace folder linked to an account. Alias: zit wsp

zit workspace init ~/work work
zit workspace init ~/personal personal

zit workspace list

List all workspaces.

$ zit workspace list
Workspaces:

  work        ~/work          work
  personal    ~/personal      personal

zit workspace remove <name>

Unlink a workspace. Keeps the folder and repos, but removes the identity link.

zit workspace remove work

zit clone <url>

Clone a repo using the current workspace's SSH key. Must be run inside a workspace folder.

cd ~/work
zit clone git@github.com:org/repo.git
zit clone git@github.com:org/repo.git --depth 1  # extra git clone flags work

zit status

Show the current directory's workspace and account info.

$ cd ~/work/my-repo && zit status
Workspace: work
Path:      ~/work
Account:   work
Name:      John Doe
Email:     john@company.com
SSH Key:   ~/.ssh/id_ed25519_work

Uninstall

zit uninstall

This removes all zit data in one step:

• All workspace includeIf entries from ~/.gitconfig
• All workspace gitconfig files
• All SSH keys for registered accounts (use --keep-keys to skip)
• The ~/.config/zit/ config directory
• Tab completion from your shell profile

Workspace folders and repos inside them are not deleted.

After running zit uninstall, remove the CLI itself:

npm uninstall -g @hypercodingdev/zit

What zit Does to Your System

• ~/.config/zit/config — stores registered accounts and workspace mappings
• ~/.config/zit/workspaces/*.gitconfig — per-workspace git config files
• ~/.gitconfig — adds includeIf entries (one per workspace)
• ~/.ssh/id_<type>_<name> — SSH keypairs for each account

Platform Support

• Linux
• macOS

License

MIT