Getting Started

Basic overview

Use git to version files and directories present in $HOME folder, henceforth called dotfiles.
Use chezmoi to manage all the workflows involved.

Use chezmoi’s templates to handle machine specific configuration.

Update workflow

See the chezmoi’s terms section for explanations of any terms below.

Use cd $(chezmoi source-path) to navigate to the source directory.

This is currently $HOME/.local/share/chezmoi.
Use chezmoi edit $HOME/<target> to edit the corresponding <target> as present in the source directory.
Use a git branch for significant changes to source state
- git branch -b updates
- chezmoi diff to see what will change
- chezmoi apply to update destination state in $HOME
- git checkout master to reset everything back in case of disaster.
Use -n|--dry-run and -v|--verbose after chezmoi in the above commands if scared.

For any of the symlinks, chezmoi dump ~/<target> to see what chezmoi is modelling it as. eg:

$ chezmoi dump ~/.bash_profile
[
  {
    "type": "symlink",
    "sourcePath": "/home/vvnraman/.local/share/chezmoi/symlink_dot_bash_profile",
    "targetPath": ".bash_profile",
    "template": false,
    "linkname": "dot-bash/bash_profile"
  }
]

Avoid using this for non-symlinks, as the output is either json or yaml and not human readable.