Select authenticated user via `GH_USER` env var

[gringolito]

Describe the feature or problem you’d like to solve

I manage multiple GitHub accounts across several projects and must manually run gh auth switch to change identities or explicitly set a flag to choose which authenticated account to use. I often forget to switch, which leads to accidental operations under the wrong account and interrupts my workflow. I would like to set an environment variable in my current workspace to instruct/hint gh CLI which user it should use.

Proposed solution

When multiple users are authenticated, gh should respect an environment variable (e.g. GH_USER) to pick the active user non-interactively, similar to AWS CLI's AWS_PROFILE.

Additional context

$ gh auth status
github.com
  ✓ Logged in to github.com account gringolito (keyring)
  - Active account: false
  - Git operations protocol: https
  - Token: ************************************
  - Token scopes: **********************************

  ✓ Logged in to github.com account Filipe-Utzig (keyring)
  - Active account: true
  - Git operations protocol: https
  - Token: ************************************
  - Token scopes: **********************************
$ export GH_USER=gringolito
$ gh api /user | jq -r ".login"
gringolito
$ export GH_USER=Filipe-Utzig
$ gh api /user | jq -r ".login"
Filipe-Utzig

[github-actions]

Thank you for your issue! We have categorized it as a feature request, and it has been added to our backlog. In doing so, we are not committing to implementing this feature at this time, but, we will consider it for future releases based on community feedback and our own product roadmap.

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If you come across this issue and would like to see it implemented, please add a thumbs up! This will help us prioritize the feature. Please only comment if you have additional information or viewpoints to contribute.

[babakks]

Thanks for sharing your feedback, @gringolito! 🍻

I see your point, and gh does have a similar offering, although it might not be very visible. You can override the GH_CONFIG_DIR env var to make gh switch to a different set of configuration and user accounts.

Surely you can do it in whatever way that suits your use case, but as an example you can create a directory for gh to store the configuration, assign and export the GH_CONFIG_DIR env var, login once with your account, and continue using gh in the same shell/environment:

mkdir ~/profile-a
export GH_CONFIG_DIR=~/profile-a
gh auth login -c
# Complete the flow

# From now on, gh will only know and use the newly authenticated user.

You can repeat the same process to add more profiles/configurations, and override GH_CONFIG_DIR to the target account profile/configuration directory. Note that the accounts are isolated, and if you ever need to use the same account via multiple profiles/configurations, you should login on each of them separately.

Can you please check this and tell me if it works for you?

[gringolito]

Thanks @babakks, this worked for me.

I still would consider leaving this opened as an improvement (not a feature request anymore).

[babakks]

By the way, if your both accounts are on the same GitHub host (e.g. github.com), you may want to try this simpler approach:

export GH_TOKEN=$(gh auth token --user USER1 --hostname github.com)
# from now on `gh` acts on behalf of USER1

export GH_TOKEN=$(gh auth token --user USER2 --hostname github.com)
# from now on `gh` acts on behalf of USER2

[gringolito]

This worked for me as well. Personally, I prefer this approach over creating multiple config paths, it’s more straightforward and doesn’t require any extra setup on the user side. This solution meets all my expectations. Thanks, @babakks!

[babakks]

Yeah, this is definitely simpler. The other approach works best if you're working with multiple GitHub hosts (e.g. in #11935).