I've seen projects like this for years and I still have the genuinely honest question: what are people doing that managing their dotfiles is significant problem for them?
I've managed my dotfiles (12 different configuration files all compatible with cygwin, wsl, linux, macOS) for the past decade in a git repo with a 50 LOC shell script that creates symlinks for me in an intelligent way. What am I missing?
You're missing Windows, GUI apps, and the other dozens of cli apps above 12? Also cases where symlinks break because apps delete configs before saving and the ability to differentiate between systems easier. Also the final output config is cleaner/more readable if cross-OS compatibility is offloaded to a config manager. Then templates/vars can make configs cleaner /easier to update (e.g. moved some portable apps from C to D to save ssd space, can update one var). Also can limit config diff noise by ignoring unimportant changes like latest app window position
I use chezmoi, and I didn’t have to write a 50-line script - just install chezmoi on a new machine, run a command pointing it to a git repo, and up pop all the dot files and configs I need to have a consistent environment everywhere.
Chezmoi also handles variations in config files for personal vs. Work machines, or even differences between machines themselves.
I agree it’s not a tremendous lift to write a bespoke solution for this (and I did so in the past) but at some point it becomes lower-effort to use something off the shelf.
So during my college days and a bit after that as well I used these tools because these tools were there to be used. I then learned it is not a problem for me, it never was. I used them for the sake of using them. So I stopped using those tools and tools like config backup etc.
I think such tools will be useful for people who use hundreds of apps and have to often migrate/reset or replicate those setups.
Kind of like you, my .dotfiles folder is a private github repo now which has barely 10 files and I don't even use symlinks anymore.
So I think it's also kind of a hobby, if I may say so.
+1, I also don’t understand these tools. Especially these days, many apps are using ~/.config so i barely need a for loop to link everything. I like being able to slap my dotfiles on any box with my only dependencies being `bash` and either `git` or `curl | tar xzf`. At Berkeley I spent a lot of time sshing into various machines where I wasn’t root and I was only gonna use the system for a few hours. Like sshing in to each desktop in a computer lab looking for one nobody is running a build on.
It’s worked fine for me for 15 years, macOS, many Linux distros, FreeBSD.
If that works for you, great. I split files up into multiple repos and manage them with VCSH. The modular approach lets me configure multiple machines differently. I have config on my work laptop that shouldn’t end up on my personal devices, vice versa. I don’t really need my i3 config on my MacBook Pro. Ditto for XDG paths, just as I have macOS config that doesn’t have a natural fit on a Linux desktop.
I could use one repo for work and one for personal and live with the mess of useless files, but I like the cleanliness and having simple git histories. I also don’t have to have conditional statements all over the place.
I use home-manager for my dotfiles, and they manage quite a few things.
For example:
1. My editor config (neovim) including downloading and installing all my plugins, including the dependencies of the plugins (including deno, rust-analyzer, clippy, etc)
2. All the other tools I use, like ripgrep, python, and so on, including installing the same version on every machine I've got.
3. A bunch of misc programs and scripts I've written for myself, including all their dependencies
4. All the xdg configuration to open http links in the right browser profile, pdfs in evince, etc, as well as all the programs needed for that
5. systemd user units to run various daemons, like syncthing to sync some documents between computers, gpg-agent, etc etc.
And this works on all machines running any linux distro, from arch linux to nixos to ubuntu.
home-manager is just another dotfile manager, but since nix makes packages isolated, such that my user version of $pkg doesn't conflict or depend on the host version, home-manaer can also safely manage applications I run, like my editor, browser, developer tools, systemd units, etc etc etc.
I agree that most dotfile managers are weird overengineered projects that could have been a short shell script.
I think nix+home-manager is a weird overengineered project that could not have been a shell script.
I just use a git repo and GNU Stow similar to the approach in this post (I'm not the author of the post):
https://tamerlan.dev/how-i-manage-my-dotfiles-using-gnu-stow...
Stow is usually trivially installable using the package manager while I'm installing git. Not nearly as full featured as chezmoi but gets the job done for me.
Thanks for the post, it's from your post that I adapt and find a way for my own use.
Why is "written in Rust" as important as what the software is about? I noticed this tendency of specifying when something is written in Rust.
Should it be an indicator of better stability? Or performance? And if so, am I interested in the performance of a dotfile tool?
Genuinely curious.
It means I can install it easily and it's probably going to work well on the first try, and it'll likely start up and run fast.
It also uses clap for argument parsing so I know I can run it with `--help` to discover its options, and that the parsing of flags is likely not buggy, and consistent with other Rust tools I use.
None of this is _guaranteed_ with Rust, but the tooling and libraries make it so much easier for you to succeed at making a fast and robust piece of software. So for me "written in Rust" is usually a quality indicator of sorts. It's not 100% though, there will always be misses because it's still very possible to write bad software in any language.
Easy to deploy, usually single static binaries. Same goes with Golang projects. Polar opposite of java (which I'll totally ignore).
It can also serve an indicator of being in the know and with the times while also being performance-, close-to-the-metal oriented. "A dot file manager not written in Fortran, but one that could have been written in Python, but actually written in Rust"
Maybe it’s a way to attract contributors?
Likely no dependency hell in pip or npm. Likely fast and well thought out. Not sure fire things, but given the choice between a program written in Rust (or Go) vs one written in JavaScript or (especially) Python, the former two win every time.
git bare repo handles dotfiles better than any bespoke platform
1. git is already there and familiar
2. sync dotfiles over ssh . no internet access or separate credentials needed (for github, s3 etc)
3. handles merge conflicts
4. easily push & pull subdirectories into /etc , /usr/local or wherever else you need configuration using git subtree.
git bare repo works for tracking files anywhere on the FS as well. (check debian etckeeper for automating that)
How does your bare repo handle a config file in different paths on Windows and MacOS where you want to ignore "last_update_time" field diff noise and also have OS-specific path references?
Now that 20225 has become “The Year of the Terminal”(R), I have been looking at how managing my dot files in a more coherent way. I was thinking straight up git vs stow, but I should would be very interested in comparisons from those who have used this tool.
Chezmoi is what you want.
I haven't looked at this one yet, but until someone compares it to Chezmoi and points out where it's better I'm not even looking attention I fear. Chezmoi is just that good.
I've been using "homegit" for years and never felt the need for a replacement.
I found it quite useful. My main use case for it is managing the same dotfiles for Windows and Linux. Specifically that neovim uses different folders and I can set that per OS in dotter.
It also allows for including our not including a config based on an executable being available which can be useful. It requires some configuration, depending on how many of its features you use but I think it's worth it.
If all you want is GNU Stow with a bit nicer UX, I wrote and have been using https://github.com/bbkane/fling for a few years now. See the demo gif in the README for the UX
I made a post recently on HN about this. All you need is git. It does everything. I didn't know why people want symlinks and everything else.
https://ericgreer.info/post/2025-08-31-simple-dotfiles-scrip...
I've never really had any of the issues that is mentioned in the bullet points. I use the Atlassian post on storing dotfiles [1] for several years now.
* It's easy to setup on a new machine, no creating symlinks on every setup
* I create separate branches for different machines/environments. Like, currently, I have a branch for macos and my master branch is for devcontainer, but I have had a linux branch too.
I copied the post to a markdown as a README in the repository in the off chance Atlassian deletes the post for some reason.
Most recently, I started moving any config files I could into the .config to keep the home directory clean. i.e. .config/git .config/fish and .config/zsh
I have a backup/restore set of scripts that copies my dot files over as well as a few directories as a whole via rsync.
My only big issue is how big ~/.config/ gets as a directory compared to how much I really want to keep/need in terms of a fresh setup. Similar for my ~/src/ directory, with all the ./.git/ files. I kind of wish there were a "smarter" backup/restore tool that could handle a few of these things better than ham-fisting and rsyncing all the things.. I was more selective in my restore when configuring my new computer earlier in the year.
Try Stow. You can create packages for your stuff and symlink the files as needed. I have packages like git, shell, mail,…
I've been using dotter for 5+ years and it's been an amazing tool. Doesn't go all in like NixOS, but lets you get close to that functionality by allowing templating to reuse a single dotfile repo across different systems. I also like how you can easily conditionally select configurations and scripts to load depending on environment.
Wish there were a detailed comparison to some other managers like chezmoi
I wish it had more examples or some basic documentation website, it looks interesting cuz i have a lot of context switching through all my tools.
Call a potential fork 'yolk'.