Dotfiles

A very simple dotfiles setup - no special tools, just git and zsh.

Inspired by this HN post.

Initial Setup

# create the .dotfiles repository
git init --bare $HOME/.dotfiles

# add an alias to manage the dotfiles
echo "alias dotfiles='/usr/bin/git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ --work-tree=$HOME'" >> $HOME/.zshrc

# reload zsh so the alias is available
source ~/.zshrc

# set git status to hide untracked files
dotfiles config --local status.showUntrackedFiles no

# add the remote
dotfiles remote add origin git@git.ghostze.ro:felixdv/dotfiles.git

Usage

# dotfiles status
dotfiles status

# add files and commit
dotfiles add .config/nvim/init.lua
dotfiles add .config/nvim/lua
dotfiles commit -m "Add vim config"

# push changes to remote
dotfiles push

New Computer Setup

A normal git clone will fail if your home directory isn't empty. To get around that, clone the repo's working directory into a temporary directory first and then delete that directory:

# clone your dotfiles from the remote
git clone --separate-git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles git@git.ghostze.ro:felixdv/dotfiles.git $HOME/dotfiles-tmp

# remove the temporary directory
rm -r ~/dotfiles-tmp/

# set up the alias again
echo "alias dotfiles='/usr/bin/git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ --work-tree=$HOME'" >> $HOME/.zshrc