We were tired of logging in and out of Claude

We built Shuriken because we were tired of one loop, the one you hit with Claude Code when an account runs out.

The loop#

You're two hours into a refactor. The agent has a plan, half the files are done, the tests are close. Then: you've hit your limit, it resets at 6 pm.

You have a second Claude account. Yours, paid for, sitting there with plenty of room. So:

1. /logout.
2. /login, pick the other account in the browser, come back.
3. Start a new session, or try to find the old one.
4. Paste the context back in: "We were moving the billing code into its own module, here's the plan, these files are done, these aren't."
5. Wait while the agent reads the same files again.

Twenty minutes later you're roughly where you were. Then tomorrow you do it again, the other way round.

What stays behind#

Handing a project to another account by hand costs more than the five steps.

The usual trick is to keep each account in its own config folder, so you don't have to log out at all. It works, and lots of people do it. But then each folder has its own chat history and its own MCP sign-ins. Move to the other folder and your Notion, Linear and GitHub servers may ask you to sign in again. The chat you were in isn't there.

And the momentum stays behind. The agent's picture of what it was doing, the half-finished thought, the plan it was following. You can paste a summary, but a summary isn't the chat.

What we wanted#

Something simple to say and annoying to build:

• When an account gets close to its limit, the chat moves to an account that still has room. By itself.
• The chat stays the same chat. Same history, same plan, same subagents still running.
• It happens on every device at once, so the laptop, the desktop and the server never disagree about which account is in use.

That's automatic source switching. A source is any account or API key you add: Claude, ChatGPT for Codex, Gemini and more, several per provider if you have them. (Source switching has the details.)

Why an app, not a swap script#

We looked at the scripts first. There are good ones, and if all you want is to flip the active account in your terminal, use one. We compared the account switchers we know of.

But the loop was only half the problem. Five chats running at once all need the right account at the same moment, and they all run out together. We wanted to sign in to an MCP server once and have it work in every project, on every account, so in Shuriken the sign-in belongs to the server, not to your AI account (Global MCPs). We wanted to check on a chat from the couch and see which account it was on. And Claude's 5-hour window starts when an account is first used, so using it well means knowing every account's state at once. That became 5-hour clocks.

All of that needs one place that sees every account, every chat and every device. A script can't. So it became an app.

The rules#

Use accounts you own and pay for, and that you're entitled to use. Shuriken only uses the plans and keys you add. Providers' terms may not allow sharing a subscription sign-in, so don't share yours, and don't buy accounts to get around limits. We wrote up what the rules say in Can you have more than one Claude account?.

How it looks now#

When a chat moves, a small card in the chat says which account took over and why. No pop-up, no interruption, nothing to click.

You choose when chats leave an account. The switch point is 99% of a window by default, and you can set it anywhere from 50% to 100%. Shuriken also switches the moment a provider reports a limit, before your switch point. API keys come last, and only if you turn on "Switch to API keys" (it starts off). Then they take chats once every subscription is out, and a spend cap per fallback run, $25 by default, stops the run.

The step-by-step version, with the free and manual options too, is in How to switch Claude accounts without logging out. And if what you care about is not losing the thread, read Keep the same chat when you switch Claude accounts.

We stopped typing /logout. Try Shuriken and stop typing it too.