Quick Tip: Switching Between Claude Profiles on Anthropic and Bedrock

The Problem

If you use Claude Code across multiple environments — an Anthropic subscription, a work AWS Bedrock account, a personal one — switching between them means:

• Editing ~/.claude/settings.json each time, or
• Manually export-ing environment variables before launching, or
• Juggling multiple terminal windows with different environments

None of these are great. Shell aliases solve this in 5 minutes.

What is a Shell Alias?

A shell alias is a custom shortcut command that expands into a longer command automatically. Instead of typing:

CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1 AWS_PROFILE=my-work-account AWS_REGION=us-east-1 claude

You define a nickname once, and just type claude-work from then on. That’s it.

Setup (5 minutes)

Step 1: Open your shell config file

# If you're on a modern Mac (zsh):
nano ~/.zshrc

# If you're on Linux or an older Mac (bash):
nano ~/.bashrc

Step 2: Add your aliases

Paste the following at the bottom of the file, replacing profile names and regions with your own:

# Claude Code profile aliases
alias claude-anthropic='unset CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK && claude'
alias claude-bedrock1='CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1 AWS_PROFILE=account1 AWS_REGION=us-east-1 claude'
alias claude-bedrock2='CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1 AWS_PROFILE=account2 AWS_REGION=eu-west-1 claude'
alias claude-bedrock3='CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1 AWS_PROFILE=account3 AWS_REGION=ap-southeast-1 claude'

Note: The AWS_PROFILE values here should match the profile names in your ~/.aws/credentials or ~/.aws/config file.

Step 3: Reload your shell

source ~/.zshrc   # or source ~/.bashrc

That’s it. You’re done.

Using Your Aliases

From now on, launching Claude Code with a specific profile is just one short command:

claude-anthropic   # Anthropic subscription
claude-bedrock1    # Bedrock Account #1
claude-bedrock2    # Bedrock Account #2
claude-bedrock3    # Bedrock Account #3

The environment variables are only set for that Claude session — they won’t bleed into other terminal windows or background processes.

Tips

Use descriptive alias names. Names like claude-personal, claude-work, or claude-prod are easier to remember than claude-bedrock1.

alias claude-personal='CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1 AWS_PROFILE=personal AWS_REGION=us-west-2 claude'
alias claude-work='CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1 AWS_PROFILE=corp-sso AWS_REGION=eu-west-1 claude'

Combine with SSO login. If your Bedrock accounts use AWS SSO, you can chain the login command so it refreshes credentials automatically before launching:

alias claude-work='aws sso login --profile corp-sso && CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1 AWS_PROFILE=corp-sso AWS_REGION=eu-west-1 claude'

Check which aliases you have at any time:

alias | grep claude

Why Not Just Use ~/.claude/settings.json?

The settings.json file is great for setting a default configuration, but it only supports one active profile at a time. There’s currently no native multi-profile switcher built into Claude Code. Aliases fill that gap — no extra tooling required, just your shell.