Use Multiple Profiles¶

A Profile is a complete OWL configuration with an alias. It contains an Endpoint, API Key, and optional workspace information. Use Profiles to keep accounts, sites, or environments isolated.

Add and switch Profiles¶

owl profile add customer-a
owl profile add customer-b --from ./customer-b.yaml
owl profile list
owl switch customer-a
owl profile current

profile add saves a configuration but does not select it. Adding or switching only validates local files; authorization is checked when a real request is made, and OWL never falls back to another Profile after an error.

Use another Profile for one command without changing the default:

owl --profile customer-b sync
owl --profile customer-b exec owl.data.show_dql_namespace
OWL_PROFILE=customer-b owl profile current -f json

Selection precedence is --profile > OWL_PROFILE > the default saved by owl switch. Put --profile before the tool name; options after the tool name belong to that tool.

Files, identity, and cache isolation¶

Named Profiles have separate configuration, credentials, cache, data, and log directories under ${OWL_DIR}/profiles/. Tool caches are also partitioned by Endpoint and Key. Changing either identity value cannot silently reuse another identity's catalog.

The legacy ${OWL_DIR}/config.yaml remains available as the reserved default Profile. Until a Profile is selected, legacy configuration and environment-variable precedence remain unchanged. Once a Profile is selected, its Endpoint and Key are used together; OWL_REGISTRY_ENDPOINT, OWL_API_KEY, and OWL_TOKEN do not override them.

The CLI --conf option is deprecated and hidden from help. It remains compatible during migration, but cannot be combined with --profile. Import an existing file with:

owl profile add standalone --from ./standalone.yaml
owl --profile standalone config show

This deprecation does not affect the Registry service's --config option.

Shell completion¶

Enable offline Bash or PowerShell completion:

eval "$(owl completion bash)"
owl completion powershell | Out-String | Invoke-Expression

Completion can suggest Profile aliases, categories, tool names, parameters, and schema enum values. It only reads the selected Profile's local cache; it does not access the network or execute tools. Run owl sync in each Profile that needs tool completion.

Rename and remove¶

owl profile rename customer-a customer-a-prod
owl profile remove customer-b
owl profile remove obsolete-profile --purge

Removing a Profile normally preserves its cache and data. --purge also removes managed artifacts. If purge fails, the configuration, credentials, and alias are retained or restored so you can fix permissions and retry; artifacts already deleted are not restored. The reserved default Profile cannot be renamed or removed.