Scribbles for my bad memory

If you juggle work and personal GitHub accounts like I do, constantly checking which account is active before running gh pr create gets old fast. Here's a perfect solution that completely eliminates this friction.

The Problem

Working with multiple GitHub accounts means:

• Forgetting which account is currently active
• Getting "No default remote repository" errors
• Manually running gh auth switch and gh repo set-default
• Accidentally creating PRs with the wrong account

The Solution

Create a gh wrapper script that automatically detects the current repository's owner, switches to the correct GitHub account, and sets the default repository before executing any command.

Implementation

#!/bin/bash

# Path to original gh binary
ORIGINAL_GH="/usr/local/bin/gh"  # Adjust for your system

# Get current repository's remote URL
remote_url=$(git remote get-url origin 2>/dev/null)

# If not in a git repo, pass through to original gh
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
    exec "$ORIGINAL_GH" "$@"
fi

# Extract full repository name (owner/repo) - remove .git suffix
if [[ $remote_url =~ github\.com[:/]([^/]+/[^/]+) ]]; then
    repo_full_name="${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"
    repo_full_name="${repo_full_name%.git}"
    repo_owner=$(echo "$repo_full_name" | cut -d'/' -f1)
else
    exec "$ORIGINAL_GH" "$@"
fi

# Get current active GitHub account
current_user=$("$ORIGINAL_GH" api user --jq '.login' 2>/dev/null)

if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
    exec "$ORIGINAL_GH" "$@"
fi

# Switch account if needed
if [ "$repo_owner" != "$current_user" ]; then
    echo "→ Repository belongs to $repo_owner, switching from $current_user..." >&2
    "$ORIGINAL_GH" auth switch >/dev/null 2>&1
fi

# Set default repository to avoid "No default remote repository" errors
"$ORIGINAL_GH" repo set-default "$repo_full_name" >/dev/null 2>&1

# Execute original command
exec "$ORIGINAL_GH" "$@"

Setup

1. Find your original gh path:

which gh
# Use this path in the ORIGINAL_GH variable

2. Create the wrapper script:

# Save script as ~/.local/bin/gh
chmod +x ~/.local/bin/gh

3. Adjust PATH priority:

# Add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

4. Verify setup:

source ~/.bashrc
which gh  # Should show ~/.local/bin/gh

Usage

All GitHub CLI commands now automatically use the correct account:

# In personal repository
gh pr create  # Uses personal account, sets correct default repo

# In work repository  
gh pr create  # Uses work account, sets correct default repo

# All other commands work transparently
gh issue list
gh pr view
gh repo clone username/repo

Advanced: Working with Forks

For forked repositories where you want to view PRs in the upstream repo:

# View your PRs in the upstream repository
gh pr list --author @me --repo upstream-owner/repo-name

# Or temporarily switch to upstream
gh repo set-default upstream-owner/repo-name
gh pr view [PR_NUMBER]

How It Works

• Extracts repository owner from the current directory's origin remote URL
• Compares repository owner with currently active GitHub account
• Automatically runs gh auth switch if accounts don't match
• Always sets the correct default repository to prevent CLI errors
• Transparently proxies all other gh commands

Benefits

• Zero configuration required - works out of the box
• Zero habit changes needed - still use gh commands normally
• Eliminates common errors - no more "No default remote repository" messages
• Multi-account friction eliminated - never think about which account is active again

Perfect for developers who work across multiple GitHub organizations or maintain both work and personal projects.