cws — Claude Workspace Switcher

Switch between multiple Claude Code accounts/config dirs (personal, work, whatever you add) in your shell, with auto-binding by directory, per-workspace colored prompt badges, and auto-generated matching Claude Code themes.

Each workspace maps to its own CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR (a separate ~/.claude-* directory), so logins, settings, MCP servers, history, and themes are fully isolated per account. Login is stored per-config-dir in the OS keychain by claude itself — cws never touches or stores credentials.

Requirements

• zsh or bash 4+ (macOS ships bash 3.2 — install a newer one for bash support: brew install bash; zsh has no such requirement)
• python3 (theme generation, JSON settings edits, status line)

Install

git clone https://github.com/mikolajpochec/cws.git ~/dev/cws
cd ~/dev/cws
./install.sh

This is idempotent: it won't overwrite an existing workspace registry or an existing cws block in your shell rc files. On a fresh install it creates two example workspaces, personal (→ ~/.claude) and work (→ ~/.claude-work), each with an auto-generated theme, and wires sourcing into ~/.zshrc and ~/.bashrc.

bash support needs bash 4+ (associative arrays) — macOS ships bash 3.2, so on a Mac without a newer bash (brew install bash) the installer skips the ~/.bashrc block and prints a note; zsh has no such requirement.

After installing, add the prompt segment to your prompt:

# zsh (needs: setopt prompt_subst)
PROMPT='%n@%m $(cws_prompt_seg)%~ > '

# bash
PS1='\u@\h $(cws_prompt_seg_bash)\w \$ '

Open a new terminal and you should see a colored [ personal] badge.

Usage

cws                      show active workspace
cws <name>               set env for current shell (auto-rebind keeps it in sync)
cws <name> <claude args> one-shot launch claude in that workspace
cws ls                   list workspaces + bindings + colors
cws add <name> [globs]   add a workspace - color + theme auto-assigned
cws bind <name> [dir]    bind a directory (+ subtree) to a workspace - current dir if omitted
cws rm <name>            remove a workspace (registry + token; config dir kept)
cws auth <name>          claude auth login for that workspace's account
cws theme                show/set a workspace's theme
cws trust [path]         mark a path trusted in the active workspace's config
cws update               pull the latest cws release
cws help                 full command reference

Binding a workspace to a directory

For an existing workspace, bind an actual directory (its exact path plus subtree, no glob-writing needed):

cd ~/dev/client-x
cws bind client-x          # binds the current directory
cws bind client-x ~/other  # or bind an arbitrary directory

For a glob pattern instead (e.g. matching several directories by name), pass it when creating the workspace:

cws add client-x '**/dev/*client-x*'

Either way, cd-ing into a bound path auto-switches to that workspace; cd-ing back out returns to whatever the fallback workspace is (the first entry in the registry with no bindings — personal by default).

Colors & themes

cws add auto-assigns the next unused color from a 12-color palette (lib/colors.sh) and generates a full Claude Code custom theme (lib/theme-gen.sh, derives the theme's ~40 color keys from the one accent color via HSL math) written to <configDir>/themes/<name>.json, set as that workspace's default theme. No manual theme authoring needed.

Status line

cws add (and install.sh for the two example workspaces) also wires each workspace's settings.json to lib/statusline.sh as its statusLine command. It shows, in the workspace's badge color:

 personal  Sonnet 5  |  project-dir  |  [####------] 42% ctx
effort high  |  cost $0.12  |  time 12m5s  |  5h limit 24%

workspace badge, model, dir, and context-window bar on line one; effort level, session cost/duration, and 5-hour rate limit on line two (fields that aren't present in a given session, like effort or rate_limits, are just omitted). It reads the badge color back out of the private registry via $CLAUDE_WORKSPACE/$CWS_ROOT, both exported by shell/cws.zsh/cws.bash, so it stays in sync with the prompt segment without hardcoding any workspace name. Never overwrites a statusLine you've set to something else — it only claims the key when it's unset or already points at statusline.sh.

Updating

cws update fetches origin, shows what's new, and fast-forwards $CWS_HOME (only works for a git clone install, the recommended path above - it declines cleanly on a vendored/copied checkout with no remote). Each interactive shell also does a passive, offline check at startup - it never hits the network itself, just reads whatever origin/<branch> was last fetched to, and prints a one-line nudge if you're behind. Once a week it kicks a silent background git fetch so that check has fresh data next time, without ever blocking shell startup.

Layout

shell/cws.zsh      zsh entrypoint (chpwd hook + prompt var)
shell/cws.bash     bash entrypoint (PROMPT_COMMAND + PS1)
lib/registry.sh    registry parsing, env apply/clear, directory auto-bind
lib/colors.sh      palette + color assignment
lib/theme-gen.sh   accent-color -> full theme JSON generator
lib/commands.sh    add/rm/ls/theme/auth/trust/status/help + the cws dispatcher
lib/prompt.sh      cws_prompt_seg (zsh) / cws_prompt_seg_bash (bash)
lib/statusline.sh  Claude Code statusLine renderer (workspace-colored)
install.sh         idempotent installer

This repo holds only the code. Your actual workspace list (account names, config dir paths, directory bindings, colors) lives outside the repo in $CWS_ROOT (default ~/.config/claude-workspaces/workspaces) and is never read from or written into this repo — safe to keep this repo public while keeping your account setup private.

Registry format

name|configDir|keychainService|bindings|color

• bindings: comma-separated glob patterns matched against $PWD. Empty = never auto-bound by directory; the first such entry is the fallback workspace used when nothing else matches.
• color: hex string (#c084fc), used for the prompt badge and as the seed for that workspace's generated theme.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.