Profiles and environments

Keep credentials and local daemons for different Manyfold environments separate.

A profile is the local control-plane state for one Manyfold environment. It contains that environment’s API URL, credential, pending login, daemon registration, logs, process state, and control socket.

Use profiles when the same machine connects to production, staging, a self-hosted deployment, or more than one account.

Select a profile

Selection follows this order:

Root option: --profile <name>
Environment variable: MF_PROFILE
Binary channel default: default for stable, staging for dev

mf --profile default whoami
MF_PROFILE=staging mf whoami
mf profile show
mf profile list

Names are 1–32 lowercase letters, digits, _, or -, starting with a letter or digit.

mf --profile default login
mf --profile default daemon register --token -

mf --profile staging login --api-url https://api.my-deploy.example/api
mf --profile staging daemon register --token -

Each profile gets its own autostart unit, so its daemon can run alongside other profiles. Use the same profile for login, daemon register, daemon start, daemon status, and daemon stop.

What is isolated

The default layout is:

~/.manyfold/
├── profiles/<name>/
│   ├── config.json
│   ├── pending-login.json
│   └── daemon/
├── workspaces/
├── skills/
└── update-channel.json

Profiles isolate credentials and daemon control state. They do not isolate:

Agent workspaces in ~/.manyfold/workspaces
The host skill store in ~/.manyfold/skills
Framework homes such as ~/.claude or ~/.codex
The installed mf binary and its remembered update channel

Agent IDs are globally unique, so profiles can safely share the default data plane. A host that needs separate storage can declare --workspace-root and --skills-dir during mf daemon register.

Warning: Never print or copy a profile’s config.json or daemon files: they contain credentials and other sensitive state.

Inspect or delete a profile

mf profile show
mf profile show staging --json
mf profile list
mf profile delete staging

Deletion removes the profile’s credentials, pending login, daemon state, and init units. It never removes machine-shared agent workspaces or skills. A running daemon blocks deletion; stop it with the same profile first. Deleting default also requires --force.

Release channels and profiles

mf update --channel dev|stable changes the one installed binary and remembers its update channel at machine scope. It does not move or rewrite profile data.

If you do not set --profile or MF_PROFILE, switching from a stable binary to a dev binary changes the default selection from default to staging. Run mf profile show after switching channels so you know which credentials and daemon the next command will use.

Upgrading from CLI 0.21 or earlier

CLI 0.22 removed the old flat config and daemon fallbacks. After upgrading:

Select the intended profile.
Run mf login.
Issue a new machine token in Settings → Self-owned computers.
Run mf daemon register, then start the daemon.

Existing ~/.manyfold/workspaces and ~/.manyfold/skills data remains in place.

Select a profile

Sign in and register each environment

What is isolated

Inspect or delete a profile

Release channels and profiles

Upgrading from CLI 0.21 or earlier

See also