Guides

Profile by folder

With profile by folder on, typing claude in a terminal starts Claude Code in the profile of the folder you are in: claude in ~/code/work/api opens your Work profile, in ~/code/personal/blog the default one. You no longer need to remember claude-work.

The profile comes from the same rules the Projects tab uses to say which profile a project belongs to, so the two always agree.

Turn it on

In the Profiles tab, the Profile by folder section has a switch: Pick the profile from the folder when I run claude. The confirmation shows the exact line and file:

command -v cc-profiles >/dev/null 2>&1 && eval "$(cc-profiles shell-init zsh)"  # cc-profiles: profile by folder

• With zsh, the line goes at the end of ~/.zshrc (created if it does not exist).
• With bash, it goes at the end of ~/.bashrc and ~/.bash_profile, the ones that exist (with neither, ~/.bash_profile on macOS and ~/.bashrc on Linux).
• Other shells are not supported: the switch says so.

The files are backed up first, so the change shows up in the Backups tab and Restore undoes it. Turning it on twice adds nothing. Open a new terminal to use it.

Turning the switch off removes only the lines ending in # cc-profiles: profile by folder, and nothing else in the file.

You can also add the line yourself, in any startup file you like: the switch then shows it as on.

Which profile claude picks

Subfolders count: a rule code/work covers ~/code/work/api/src too, because rules match any path that contains their text. Rules are checked in the same order as in the Projects tab: exact rules first, then the first matching rule wins. Rules you add with Assign… go to the top, so to give code/work/client its own profile while code/work stays Work, add the code/work/client rule after the other one.

claude keeps working as before when:

• you set CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR yourself (CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=~/.claude-x claude): your value always wins;
• you use a profile’s own command, such as claude-work;
• cc-profiles is not installed or not in PATH: the function runs plain claude.

The section also lists your rules as folder → profile, and Try a folder shows which profile claude would pick for any path, without changing anything: type it, or click Choose… to pick it in your system’s folder dialog.

From the terminal

cc-profiles which                 # the profile for the current folder: Work
cc-profiles which ~/code/blog     # for another folder
cc-profiles which --dir           # its config folder: /Users/you/.claude-work
cc-profiles shell-init zsh        # the claude function the line loads

cc-profiles which prints nothing and exits with status 1 when no rule matches or the rule says shared. It only reads ~/.cc-profiles/config.json, never writes, and starts in about 50 ms because it does not load the server: it runs every time you start claude.

The function shell-init prints is short:

function claude {
  if [ -z "${CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR:-}" ] && command -v cc-profiles >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    local __ccp_dir
    __ccp_dir="$(cc-profiles which --dir 2>/dev/null)"
    if [ -n "$__ccp_dir" ] && [ "$__ccp_dir" != "${HOME%/}/.claude" ]; then
      CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR="$__ccp_dir" command claude "$@"
      return
    fi
  fi
  command claude "$@"
}

The default profile keeps CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR unset on purpose: when it is set, Claude Code reads its settings from <folder>/.claude.json instead of ~/.claude.json.

To stop using it in the current terminal without turning it off: unset -f claude.

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