Persona Switching

Persona-Switching

Overview

Enable repositories to adopt multi-identity Git/GitHub workflows where agents work under role-specific personas (e.g., "Claude (Backend Engineer)") while maintaining GPG signing integrity and appropriate permission levels.

Skill announcement: "Using persona-switching to [set up multi-identity workflow | switch to appropriate role | suggest persona for this phase]."

Prerequisites

• Shell: Bash or Zsh (Windows PowerShell not supported - see Limitations)
• GPG: Installed with keys configured for each identity email
• gh CLI: Installed and authenticated for each GitHub account
• Permissions: Write access to ~/.config/<repo-name>/ for shell config

When to Use

Core Workflow

1. Check for existing persona configuration in target repo
2. If missing: run Setup Flow (role discovery, security profile configuration, artifact generation)
3. Source the persona config script for current session
4. Use use_persona <role> to switch to appropriate persona for current task
5. Verify switch with show_persona and gh auth status
6. Perform work under the switched persona identity
7. Switch back to appropriate persona when task context changes

Detection Logic

1. Check for existing docs/playbooks/persona-switching.md in target repo
2. If exists: Skill provides runtime guidance only
3. If missing: Skill triggers setup flow first

Setup Flow

Step 1: Role Discovery

1. Check target repo for docs/roles/*.md
   |-- Found: Parse frontmatter for role metadata
   |          Fallback to file content if no frontmatter
   |          Last resort: derive from filename
   +-- Not found: Use reference personas as defaults

2. Present discovered/default personas to user
   +-- User can add, remove, or rename

3. For each persona, prompt for security profile mapping
   +-- Suggest based on role type (dev work vs elevated ops)

Role file parsing priority:

1. Frontmatter: name:, title:, or role: fields
2. Content: First H1 heading as role name
3. Filename fallback: tech-lead.md -> "Tech Lead"

Step 2: Security Profile Configuration

Configure N security profiles based on repository needs.

Default profiles (reference):

Configuration format:

security_profiles:
  contributor:
    github_account: "dev-bot-account"
    email: "dev@company.com"
    gpg_key: "ABC123..."
  maintainer:
    github_account: "lead-bot-account"
    email: "lead@company.com"
    gpg_key: "DEF456..."

Step 3: Generate Artifacts

1. Generate playbook: docs/playbooks/persona-switching.md
2. Generate shell config: ~/.config/<repo-name>/persona-config.sh
3. Set file permissions: chmod 600 on shell config (contains account mappings)
4. Provide sourcing instructions for user's shell profile

Runtime Usage

Switching Personas

# Source the config (add to shell profile for persistence)
source ~/.config/<repo-name>/persona-config.sh

# Switch to a persona
use_persona backend-engineer

# Verify current persona
show_persona

What use_persona Does

1. Switches gh CLI to correct GitHub account
2. Updates Git config: user.name, user.email, user.signingkey
3. Verifies GPG key is available
4. Reports success or failure with actionable message

Persona-to-Profile Mapping

Each persona maps to exactly one security profile:

Ownership Model

Phase Ownership (issue-driven-delivery integration)

Delegation Mechanics

Rule of thumb: Switch for >3 commits in a role; delegate for single focused tasks.

"Dev Complete" Gate

Before transitioning from Implementation to Verification:

1. Owner invokes relevant specialist personas for review
2. Each specialist validates their domain concerns
3. Only after specialist sign-off does work move to QA

This front-loads validation so final Review/Approval is a formality.

Workflow Integration

Automatic Suggestions

GPG Signing Compatibility

Persona switching preserves GPG validity because:

• GPG validates against email, not author name
• Each security profile has consistent email + GPG key pairing
• Author name changes ("Claude (Backend Engineer)") don't break signatures

Two-Account Review Workflow

When branch protection rules require different accounts for PR creation and approval, use the two-account workflow.

Rationale

Branch protection often requires:

• PR cannot be merged by the author
• Code owner approval required
• Commits must be signed

This creates a natural separation:

Workflow Steps

Implementation Phase (contributor account)
    ↓
1. use_persona backend-engineer  # contributor profile
2. Implement changes
3. Commit and push
4. Create PR (gh pr create)
    ↓
Review Phase (maintainer account)
    ↓
5. use_persona tech-lead  # maintainer profile
6. Review PR (gh pr view, gh pr diff)
7. Approve PR (gh pr review --approve)
8. Merge PR (gh pr merge --squash)
    ↓
Resume (contributor account)
    ↓
9. use_persona backend-engineer  # back to contributor
10. Continue with next task

Account Switching Commands

# Switch to contributor for implementation
use_persona backend-engineer
gh auth status  # Verify: contributor account

# Create PR
gh pr create --title "feat: description" --body "..."

# Switch to maintainer for review
use_persona tech-lead
gh auth status  # Verify: maintainer account

# Review and merge
gh pr review <number> --approve --body "LGTM"
gh pr merge <number> --squash --delete-branch

# Switch back for next work
use_persona backend-engineer

Why Not Single Account?

Single-account workflows bypass important controls:

Integration with Pair Programming

The pair-programming skill uses two-account workflow automatically:

1. Agent works as contributor during implementation
2. Agent switches to maintainer for self-review (automated review loop)
3. Human reviewer uses their account for final approval
4. Agent (as maintainer) can merge after human approval

See skills/pair-programming/SKILL.md for complete workflow.

Common Mistakes

Security Considerations

Credential Storage

• GPG keys: Stored in user's GPG keyring (managed by gpg-agent)
• GitHub tokens: Managed by gh CLI (stored in ~/.config/gh/hosts.yml)
• Shell config: Contains account mappings but NO secrets

GPG Agent Caching

Configure gpg-agent for passphrase caching to avoid repeated prompts:

# ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf
default-cache-ttl 3600
max-cache-ttl 7200

Shell History

The use_persona command does NOT expose secrets in shell history. Profile names are safe to log; actual credentials remain in secure storage.

File Permissions

Generated shell config MUST have restricted permissions:

chmod 600 ~/.config/<repo-name>/persona-config.sh

This prevents other users from reading account mappings.

Limitations

Platform Compatibility

Windows Users: This skill requires a bash-compatible shell. Options:

1. WSL2 (Recommended): Install WSL2 with Ubuntu, configure GPG passthrough
2. Git Bash: Install Git for Windows, use bundled bash with GPG4Win

Other Limitations

• SSH signing: GPG-based signing only; SSH signing keys planned for future
• Platform scope: GitHub-focused; Azure DevOps/GitLab integration planned
• Bash version: Requires bash 4.0+ for associative arrays

Common Mistakes

Red flags - STOP:

• "I'll just change user.email manually" (breaks GPG signing)
• "Skip persona switch, it's a small change" (loses audit trail)
• "Use admin profile for everything" (violates least-privilege)
• "Commit as maintainer during implementation" (wrong permission level)

Correct approach:

• Always use use_persona to switch (handles all config atomically)
• Switch to appropriate role even for small changes
• Use contributor profile for implementation work
• Elevate to maintainer only for approvals/merges

Evidence Requirements

Setup Evidence

• Playbook generated at docs/playbooks/persona-switching.md
• Shell config generated with chmod 600 permissions
• GPG keys validated for all configured emails
• use_persona and show_persona commands tested

Runtime Evidence

• Persona switch logged in session
• show_persona confirms correct identity
• gh auth status shows expected account
• Test commit verifies GPG signature valid

Validation Commands

Verify Current Persona State

# Show current Git identity
git config user.name
git config user.email
git config user.signingkey

# Show current GitHub account
gh auth status

# Combined verification
show_persona

Test GPG Signing

# Verify GPG key exists and can sign
echo "test" | gpg --clearsign --local-user "$(git config user.email)"

# Verify commit signing works
git commit --allow-empty -m "test: verify GPG signing" --gpg-sign
git log -1 --show-signature
git reset --hard HEAD~1  # Remove test commit

Validate Persona Configuration

# Check persona config exists
ls -la ~/.config/<repo-name>/persona-config.sh

# Check file permissions (should be 600)
stat -c "%a" ~/.config/<repo-name>/persona-config.sh  # Linux
stat -f "%Lp" ~/.config/<repo-name>/persona-config.sh  # macOS

# List available personas
source ~/.config/<repo-name>/persona-config.sh
use_persona  # With no argument, lists available personas

Rollback Procedure

Reset to Default Git Identity

If persona switching fails or corrupts Git config:

# Reset to default identity (from ~/.gitconfig)
git config --unset user.name
git config --unset user.email
git config --unset user.signingkey

# Verify reset
git config --global user.name   # Should show global default
git config --global user.email  # Should show global default

Reset GitHub CLI Auth

If gh CLI is in wrong account:

# List authenticated accounts
gh auth status

# Switch to correct account
gh auth switch --user <account-name>

# If account not listed, re-authenticate
gh auth login

Emergency Rollback (All Settings)

If completely corrupted, reset everything:

# 1. Clear local git config
git config --unset-all user.name
git config --unset-all user.email
git config --unset-all user.signingkey

# 2. Reset gh auth
gh auth logout --hostname github.com
gh auth login

# 3. Regenerate persona config
rm ~/.config/<repo-name>/persona-config.sh
# Re-run persona-switching setup

References

• references/persona-config-template.sh - Shell script template
• references/playbook-template.md - Playbook template for target repos
• references/security-profiles.md - Profile configuration guidance
• references/delegation-patterns.md - When to switch vs delegate
• references/workflow-integration.md - issue-driven-delivery integration

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