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Isolated Browser Sessions for Multi-Account Console Access

· 2 min read
Erik Osterman
Erik Osterman
Founder @ Cloud Posse

The atmos auth console command now supports isolated browser sessions, allowing you to have multiple cloud provider consoles open simultaneously — one per identity — without logout conflicts.

What Changed​

When you run atmos auth console for different identities, each session now opens in its own isolated Chrome browser context. No more logout conflicts when switching between accounts — whether you're using AWS, Azure, or any other supported provider.

Enable it globally in your atmos.yaml:

auth:
  console:
    isolated: true

Or per-invocation with the --isolated flag:

atmos auth console --identity plat-staging/AdministratorAccess --isolated
atmos auth console --identity cards-staging/AdministratorAccess --isolated

Both sessions run simultaneously in separate browser windows with fully isolated cookies and session state.

Why This Matters​

Teams working across multiple cloud accounts frequently need to have several consoles open at once — comparing configurations, debugging cross-account issues, or monitoring deployments across environments. Cloud providers like AWS and Azure enforce a single session per browser context, forcing users to log out and back in every time they switch accounts.

If you've ever seen this, you know the pain:

AWS requires you to log out before signing into a different account

Isolated sessions solve this by giving each identity its own Chrome browser profile via --user-data-dir. This works for any provider that atmos auth console supports — AWS, Azure, and others as they're added. Sessions are deterministic per identity, so reopening the same identity reuses its profile (no re-login needed within the session lifetime). Different identities are fully isolated.

Platform Support​

Isolated sessions work on any platform with Chrome or Chromium installed:

  • macOS: Uses open -na "Google Chrome" --args --user-data-dir=<dir>
  • Linux: Uses google-chrome --user-data-dir=<dir>
  • Windows: Uses chrome.exe --user-data-dir=<dir>

If Chrome is not installed, Atmos falls back to the default browser with a helpful warning. The feature degrades gracefully — it never blocks console access.

Get Involved​

Have questions or feedback? Join us on Slack or open an issue on GitHub.