Dotfiles Management

Create new bare repo

1. Initialize a bare repo in your home directory

git init --bare $HOME/.dotfiles

2. Create an alias (add this to your .bashrc / .zshrc)

alias config='git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ --work-tree=$HOME'

3. Hide untracked files (so 'config status' isn't noisy)

config config --local status.showUntrackedFiles no

4. Start tracking files

config add ~/.config/nvim/init.lua config add ~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.toml config commit -m "Add nvim and alacritty config" config push

Clone to a new machine

Clone repo

git clone --bare https://github.com/you/dotfiles.git $HOME/.dotfiles

Set up the alias again, then checkout

alias config='git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ --work-tree=$HOME' config checkout

If there are conflicts with existing files, back them up first

mkdir -p ~/.config-backup &&
config checkout 2>&1 | grep "\s+." | awk '{print $1}' |
xargs -I{} mv {} ~/.config-backup/{}


## Key Principles

**What to track selectively** — don't blindly add all of `~/.config`. Be intentional:
- ✅ App configs you've customized (nvim, tmux, git, zsh, etc.)
- ❌ Secrets, tokens, credentials (use `.gitignore` or a secrets manager)
- ❌ Cache dirs (`~/.config/*/Cache`, `~/.config/*/logs`)
- ❌ Machine-specific state files

**Use a `.gitignore`** at `$HOME` level:

.config//Cache .config//cache .config/**/sessions .config/chromium # browser data

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