Features

• Group dotfiles into units (stow packages)

• Automatically symlink (stow) files

• Backup dotfiles with git

Screenshots

Installation

pip3 install dotstow

Dependencies

• Python 3

• GNU Stow

Usage

Note that unlike many dotfile syncing tools, this is powered by GNU Stow. This means your dotfiles must be stored inside stow packages (subfolders) instead of the root of your repo. This prevents cluttering your home directory with unwanted files, like your README.md. It also enables you to only install dotfiles you want on that computer.

The idea behind dotstow is twofold: 1. You don’t need to maintain a shell script that symlinks all of your dotfiles to the correct places in your $HOME directory upon a new dotfile install 2. Individual directories in you .dotfiles become packages that can be installed independently using dotstow [package]

For example:

When setting up your dotfiles on a new computer 1. Run dotstow sync, give it your dotfiles github repo link, and watch as it’s cloned into ~/.dotfiles. 2. Rundotstow zsh emacs vim ... etc for each of the stow packages you’d like to install (aka symlink to $HOME). 3. When you update a file in a package, you only need to dotstow sync to update your linked github repo with the changes. If you add new files to your stow package you will need to restow the package. For example, when adding .zshrc to .dotfiles/zsh/, you will need to dotstow zsh to restow the package and then dotstow sync to update your linked github repo with the changes.

dotstow sync

mkdir ~/.dotfiles/my-stow-package

mv ~/.some-dotfile ~/.dotfiles/my-stow-package

dotstow my-stow-package

dotstow sync

mkdir ~/.dotstow/zsh       # creates a new stow package called 'zsh'
mv ~/.zshrc ~/.dotstow/zsh # adds dotfiles to the 'zsh' stow package
dotstow zsh                # symlinks the 'zsh' stow package
dotstow sync               # syncs your dotfiles

Support

Submit an issue

Contributing

Review the guidelines for contributing

License

MIT License

Jam Risser © 2018

Changelog

Review the changelog

Credits

• Jam Risser - Author

Support on Liberapay

A ridiculous amount of coffee ☕ ☕ ☕ was consumed in the process of building this project.

Add some fuel if you’d like to keep me going!

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