cc-hotswap

Easily swap between multiple Claude Code Max plan accounts from the command line.

When you hit your weekly usage limit, one command switches to another account so you can keep working.

Why?

Claude Code Max plans have weekly usage limits that reset on a rolling 7-day cycle. Heavy users (especially on Opus) can hit these limits days early. If you have multiple accounts, this tool makes swapping between them trivial — one command instead of a logout/login dance.

It also ships as a Claude Code skill, so you can ask Claude to swap accounts for you without leaving your session.

Install

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/alexknowshtml/cc-hotswap.git

# Add to your PATH (pick one)
ln -s "$(pwd)/cc-hotswap/swap.sh" ~/.local/bin/cc-hotswap
# or
alias cc-hotswap='/path/to/cc-hotswap/swap.sh'

Setup

Save each account you want to rotate between:

# Log into your first account
claude auth login
cc-hotswap add work-account

# Log into your second account
claude auth logout
claude auth login
cc-hotswap add personal-account

# Switch back to your primary
cc-hotswap work-account

Usage

# See which account is active
cc-hotswap

# Switch to another account
cc-hotswap personal-account

# Check real usage for all accounts
cc-hotswap usage

# See account details
cc-hotswap status

# List all commands
cc-hotswap help

Output:

Current: work-account
Accounts:
  * work-account (active)
    personal-account

Usage checking

Check real usage percentages from Anthropic's API — the same numbers shown in claude.ai/settings:

# One-time: save a session cookie from your browser
# (DevTools → Application → Cookies → sessionKey)
cc-hotswap set-cookie work-account sk-ant-sid02-...

# Check usage across all accounts
cc-hotswap usage

Output:

Account Usage

work-account (active)
  Weekly:  ████████████████░░░░  82%
  Session: ██░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░   9%
  Sonnet:  ███░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░  18%
  Resets in: 2d 3h

personal-account
  Weekly:  █░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░   0%
  Session: █░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░   0%
  Sonnet:  █░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░   0%
  Resets in: 6d 3h

Session cookies expire after ~10-30 minutes. For persistent usage checking, automate cookie refresh with a headless browser (Playwright/Puppeteer) — see Cookie Refresh below.

How it works

Claude Code on Linux stores OAuth credentials in ~/.claude/.credentials.json. This tool saves named snapshots of that file and copies them back when you want to switch.

Usage checking works by hitting claude.ai/api/organizations/{orgId}/usage with browser-like headers and a session cookie. The set-cookie command auto-discovers your org UUID.

Limitations

• Swap before starting a session. Claude Code reads credentials at startup. Swapping mid-session won't take effect until you start a new one.
• Session cookies expire quickly. The usage command needs a valid session cookie from claude.ai. These expire after ~10-30 minutes. You'll need to refresh them from your browser or automate it.
• Linux only. On macOS, Claude Code stores credentials in the system Keychain, not a flat file. This tool won't work there without modification.

Cookie Refresh

Session cookies expire every ~10-30 minutes, so manual entry gets tedious fast. This repo includes two scripts that automate cookie refresh using Playwright:

• cookie-daemon.cjs — Persistent daemon that keeps one Chromium instance running and refreshes all accounts every 10 minutes
• refresh-cookies.cjs — One-shot tool for initializing accounts (--init) and manual refresh

How it works

The daemon launches a single headless Chromium instance with playwright-extra and stealth to avoid bot detection. It creates a separate browser context per account, each with its own session state. Every 10 minutes it navigates each context to claude.ai, extracts the refreshed sessionKey cookie, and verifies it against the API.

One Chromium process stays warm — much lighter than launching and killing a browser on every refresh cycle.

Setup

# Install dependencies in the daemon directory
mkdir -p ~/.claude/accounts/cc-hotswap-cookies
cd ~/.claude/accounts/cc-hotswap-cookies
npm init -y
npm install playwright playwright-extra puppeteer-extra-plugin-stealth

# Copy the scripts
cp /path/to/cc-hotswap/cookie-daemon.cjs .
cp /path/to/cc-hotswap/refresh-cookies.cjs .

# Install Playwright browsers (if not already installed)
npx playwright install chromium

# Initialize each account (opens a visible browser for manual login)
node refresh-cookies.cjs --init work-account
# Log in, script auto-detects completion and saves state

node refresh-cookies.cjs --init personal-account

Running the daemon

Linux (systemd):

# ~/.config/systemd/user/cc-hotswap-cookies.service
[Unit]
Description=cc-hotswap cookie refresh daemon
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=%h/.claude/accounts/cc-hotswap-cookies
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node cookie-daemon.cjs
Restart=always
RestartSec=30

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now cc-hotswap-cookies.service

macOS (launchd): Create a plist in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ with KeepAlive: true.

Any platform: pm2 start cookie-daemon.cjs --name cc-hotswap

One-shot refresh

If you don't want to run a persistent daemon, use the one-shot refresh:

cc-hotswap refresh

This launches Chromium, refreshes all sessions, and exits. You can cron this every 15-20 minutes, though the daemon approach is lighter.

Re-initializing expired sessions

If the daemon logs "Session expired — needs re-init" (e.g. after a long downtime), re-run init for that account:

cd ~/.claude/accounts/cc-hotswap-cookies
node refresh-cookies.cjs --init work-account

A browser window opens. Log in, and the script auto-detects completion and saves the state. No Ctrl+C needed.

Claude Code Skill

cc-hotswap includes a SKILL.md file that works as a Claude Code skill. When loaded, it gives Claude Code the context to run swap commands on your behalf.

To use it, symlink the repo into your skills directory:

ln -s /path/to/cc-hotswap ~/.claude/skills/cc-hotswap

Then invoke it in Claude Code with /cc-hotswap.

File layout

~/.claude/accounts/
  .current                    # Name of active account
  creds-work-account.json     # Saved credentials
  creds-personal-account.json
  session-work-account.key    # Session cookie (for usage checking)
  org-work-account.uuid       # Org UUID (auto-discovered)

Credential and session files are stored with 600 permissions (owner read/write only). Override the storage directory with CLAUDE_SWAP_DIR.

License

MIT