Dotbot

Dotbot makes installing your dotfiles as easy as git clone $url && cd dotfiles && ./install, even on a freshly installed system!

• Rationale
• Getting Started
• Installing Your Dotfiles
• Configuration
• Directives (Link, Create, Shell, Clean, Defaults)
• Plugins
• Command-line Arguments
• Wiki

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Rationale

Dotbot is a tool that bootstraps your dotfiles (it's a [Dot]files [bo]o[t]strapper, get it?). It does less than you think, because version control systems do more than you think.

Dotbot is designed to be lightweight and self-contained, with no external dependencies and no installation required. Dotbot can also be a drop-in replacement for any other tool you were using to manage your dotfiles, and Dotbot is VCS-agnostic -- it doesn't make any attempt to manage your dotfiles.

See this blog post or more resources on the tutorials page for more detailed explanations of how to organize your dotfiles.

Getting started

Starting fresh?

Great! You can automate the creation of your dotfiles by using the user-contributed init-dotfiles script. If you'd rather use a template repository, check out dotfiles_template. Or, if you're just looking for some inspiration, we've got you covered.

Integrate with existing dotfiles

The following will help you get set up using Dotbot in just a few steps.

You can create an empty configuration file with:

touch install.conf.yaml

If you're using Git, you can add Dotbot as a submodule:

cd ~/.dotfiles # replace with the path to your dotfiles
git init # initialize repository if needed
git submodule add https://github.com/anishathalye/dotbot
git config -f .gitmodules submodule.dotbot.ignore dirty # ignore dirty commits in the submodule
cp dotbot/tools/git-submodule/install .

If you're using Mercurial, you can add Dotbot as a subrepo:

cd ~/.dotfiles # replace with the path to your dotfiles
hg init # initialize repository if needed
echo "dotbot = [git]https://github.com/anishathalye/dotbot" > .hgsub
hg add .hgsub
git clone https://github.com/anishathalye/dotbot
cp dotbot/tools/hg-subrepo/install .

If you are using PowerShell instead of a POSIX shell, you can use the provided install.ps1 script instead of install. On Windows, Dotbot only supports Python 3.8+, and it requires that your account is allowed to create symbolic links.

To get started, you just need to fill in the install.conf.yaml and Dotbot will take care of the rest. To help you get started we have an example config file as well as configuration documentation for the accepted parameters.

Note: The install script is merely a shim that checks out the appropriate version of Dotbot and calls the full Dotbot installer. By default, the script assumes that the configuration is located in install.conf.yaml the Dotbot submodule is located in dotbot. You can change either of these parameters by editing the variables in the install script appropriately.

Setting up Dotbot as a submodule or subrepo locks it on the current version. You can upgrade Dotbot at any point. If using a submodule, run git submodule update --remote dotbot, substituting dotbot with the path to the Dotbot submodule; be sure to commit your changes before running ./install, otherwise the old version of Dotbot will be checked out by the install script. If using a subrepo, run git fetch && git checkout origin/master in the Dotbot directory.

Installation as a command-line program

If you prefer, instead of bundling Dotbot as a submodule with your dotfiles, you can install Dotbot from PyPI as a standalone command-line program. Use the tool of your choice, such as pip or uv:

uv tool install dotbot

Some systems include Dotbot in their native package manager, such as Homebrew and Arch Linux, so for example, you can also install it with brew install dotbot.

With Dotbot installed as a command-line program on your system, you can invoke Dotbot with dotbot -c <path to configuration file>.

Full example

Here's an example of a complete configuration.

The conventional name for the configuration file is install.conf.yaml.

- defaults:
    link:
      relink: true

- clean: ['~']

- link:
    ~/.tmux.conf: tmux.conf
    ~/.vim: vim
    ~/.vimrc: vimrc

- create:
    - ~/downloads
    - ~/.vim/undo-history

- shell:
  - [git submodule update --init --recursive, Installing submodules]

The configuration file is typically written in YAML, but it can also be written in JSON (which is a subset of YAML). JSON configuration files are conventionally named install.conf.json.

Installing Your Dotfiles

To install your dotfiles on a new machine or after updates:

git clone <your-dotfiles-repo-url> ~/.dotfiles
cd ~/.dotfiles
./install

To update an existing installation:

cd ~/.dotfiles
git pull
./install

Configuration

Dotbot uses YAML or JSON-formatted configuration files to let you specify how to set up your dotfiles. Currently, Dotbot knows how to link files and folders, create folders, execute shell commands, and clean directories of broken symbolic links. Dotbot also supports user plugins for custom commands.

Ideally, bootstrap configurations should be idempotent. That is, the installer should be able to be run multiple times without causing any problems. This makes a lot of things easier to do (in particular, syncing updates between machines becomes really easy).

Dotbot configuration files are arrays of tasks, where each task is a dictionary that contains a command name mapping to data for that command. Tasks are run in the order in which they are specified. Commands within a task do not have a defined ordering.

When writing nested constructs, keep in mind that YAML is whitespace-sensitive. Following the formatting used in the examples is a good idea. If a YAML configuration file is not behaving as you expect, try inspecting the equivalent JSON and check that it is correct.

Directives

Most Dotbot commands support both a simplified and extended syntax, and they can also be configured via setting defaults.

Link

Link commands create symbolic links at specified locations that point to files in your dotfiles repository. This allows you to keep your configuration files in version control while having them appear where applications expect to find them. Symlinks are created by default, but hardlinks are also supported. If desired, items can be specified to be forcibly linked, overwriting existing files if necessary. Environment variables in paths are automatically expanded.

Format

Link commands are specified as a dictionary mapping link names to targets. The link name (key) is where the symbolic link will be created, and the target (value) is the file in your dotfiles directory that the link will point to. Targets are specified relative to the base directory (that is specified when running the installer). If linking directories, do not include a trailing slash.

Link commands support an optional extended configuration. In this type of configuration, instead of specifying targets directly, link names are mapped to extended configuration dictionaries.

Parameter	Explanation
path	The target for the link (file in dotfiles directory), the same as in the shortcut syntax (default: null, automatic (see below))
type	The type of link to create. If specified, must be either symlink or hardlink. (default: symlink)
create	When true, create parent directories to the link as needed. (default: false)
relink	Removes the old link if it's a symlink (default: false)
force	Force removes the old link, file or folder, and forces a new link (default: false)
relative	When creating a symlink, use a relative path to the target. (default: false, absolute links)
canonicalize	Resolve any symbolic links encountered in the target to symlink to the canonical path (default: true, real paths)
if	Execute this in your $SHELL and only link if it is successful.
ignore-missing	Do not fail if the target is missing and create the link anyway (default: false)
glob	Treat path as a glob pattern, expanding patterns referenced below, linking all files matched. (default: false)
exclude	Array of glob patterns to remove from glob matches. Uses same syntax as path. Ignored if glob is false. (default: empty, keep all matches)
prefix	Prepend prefix prefix to basename of each file when linked, when glob is true. (default: '')

When glob: true, Dotbot uses glob.glob to resolve glob paths, expanding Unix shell-style wildcards, which are not the same as regular expressions; Only the following are expanded:

Pattern	Meaning
*	matches anything
**	matches any file, recursively
?	matches any single character
[seq]	matches any character in seq
[!seq]	matches any character not in seq

However, due to the design of glob.glob, using a glob pattern such as config/*, will not match items that begin with .. To specifically capture items that being with ., you will need to include the . in the pattern, like this: config/.*.

When using glob with the exclude: option, the paths in the exclude paths should be relative to the base directory, same as the glob pattern itself. For example, if a glob pattern vim/* matches directories vim/autoload, vim/ftdetect, vim/ftplugin, and vim/spell, and you want to ignore the spell directory, then you should use exclude: ["vim/spell"] (not just "spell").

Example

- link:
    ~/.config/terminator:
      create: true
      path: config/terminator
    ~/.vim: vim
    ~/.vimrc:
      relink: true
      path: vimrc
    ~/.zshrc:
      force: true
      path: zshrc
    ~/.hammerspoon:
      if: '[ `uname` = Darwin ]'
      path: hammerspoon
    ~/.config/:
      glob: true
      path: dotconf/config/**
    ~/:
      glob: true
      path: dotconf/*
      prefix: '.'

If the target location is omitted or set to null, Dotbot will use the basename of the link name, with a leading . stripped if present. This makes the following two config files equivalent.

Explicit targets:

- link:
    ~/bin/ack: ack
    ~/.vim: vim
    ~/.vimrc:
      relink: true
      path: vimrc
    ~/.zshrc:
      force: true
      path: zshrc
    ~/.config/:
      glob: true
      path: config/*
      relink: true
      exclude: [ config/Code ]
    ~/.config/Code/User/:
      create: true
      glob: true
      path: config/Code/User/*
      relink: true

Implicit targets:

- link:
    ~/bin/ack:
    ~/.vim:
    ~/.vimrc:
      relink: true
    ~/.zshrc:
      force: true
    ~/.config/:
      glob: true
      path: config/*
      relink: true
      exclude: [ config/Code ]
    ~/.config/Code/User/:
      create: true
      glob: true
      path: config/Code/User/*
      relink: true

Create

Create commands specify empty directories to be created. This can be useful for scaffolding out folders or parent folder structure required for various apps, plugins, shell commands, etc.

Format

Create commands are specified as an array of directories to be created. If you want to use the optional extended configuration, create commands are specified as dictionaries. For convenience, it's permissible to leave the options blank (null) in the dictionary syntax.

Parameter	Explanation
mode	The file mode to use for creating the leaf directory (default: 0777)

The mode parameter is treated in the same way as in Python's os.mkdir. Its behavior is platform-dependent. On Unix systems, the current umask value is first masked out.

Example

- create:
    - ~/downloads
    - ~/.vim/undo-history
- create:
    ~/.ssh:
      mode: 0700
    ~/projects:

Shell

Shell commands specify shell commands to be run. Shell commands are run in the base directory (that is specified when running the installer).

Format

Shell commands can be specified in several different ways. The simplest way is just to specify a command as a string containing the command to be run.

Another way is to specify a two element array where the first element is the shell command and the second is an optional human-readable description.

Shell commands support an extended syntax as well, which provides more fine-grained control.

Parameter	Explanation
command	The command to be run
description	A human-readable message describing the command (default: null)
quiet	Show only the description but not the command in log output (default: false)
stdin	Allow a command to read from standard input (default: false)
stdout	Show a command's output from stdout (default: false)
stderr	Show a command's error output from stderr (default: false)

Note that quiet controls whether the command (a string) is printed in log output, it does not control whether the output from running the command is printed (that is controlled by stdout / stderr). When a command's stdin / stdout / stderr is not enabled (which is the default), it's connected to /dev/null, disabling input and hiding output.

Example

- shell:
  - chsh -s $(which zsh)
  - [chsh -s $(which zsh), Making zsh the default shell]
  -
    command: read var && echo Your variable is $var
    stdin: true
    stdout: true
    description: Reading and printing variable
    quiet: true
  -
    command: read fail
    stderr: true

Clean

Clean commands specify directories that should be checked for dead symbolic links. These dead links are removed automatically. Only dead links that point to somewhere within the dotfiles directory are removed unless the force option is set to true.

Format

Clean commands are specified as an array of directories to be cleaned.

Clean commands also support an extended configuration syntax.

Parameter	Explanation
force	Remove dead links even if they don't point to a file inside the dotfiles directory (default: false)
recursive	Traverse the directory recursively looking for dead links (default: false)

Note: using the recursive option for ~ is not recommended because it will be slow.

Example

- clean: ['~']

- clean:
    ~/:
      force: true
    ~/.config:
      recursive: true

Defaults

Default options for plugins can be specified so that options don't have to be repeated many times. This can be very useful to use with the link command, for example.

Defaults apply to all commands that come after setting the defaults. Defaults can be set multiple times; each change replaces the defaults with a new set of options.

Format

Defaults are specified as a dictionary mapping action names to settings, which are dictionaries from option names to values.

Example

- defaults:
    link:
      create: true
      relink: true

Plugins

Dotbot also supports custom directives implemented by plugins. Plugins are implemented as subclasses of dotbot.Plugin, so they must implement can_handle() and handle(). The can_handle() method should return True if the plugin can handle an action with the given name. The handle() method should do something and return whether or not it completed successfully.

Plugins should declare support for dry-run with supports_dry_run = True, and implement this support by logging what the plugin would do (without doing it) when Context.dry_run() is set. Plugins that don't explicitly declare support for dry-run will be skipped when Dotbot is run with --dry-run.

All built-in Dotbot directives are written as plugins that are loaded by default, so those can be used as a reference when writing custom plugins.

See here for a current list of third-party plugins.

Loading plugins via configuration

You can specify plugins in your configuration file as an array of files or directories (containing plugins) to load:

- plugins:
    - dotbot-plugins/dotbot-brew/
    - dotbot-plugins/custom_plugin.py

Paths specified in the config file are interpreted relative to the base directory.

Loading plugins via command line

Plugins can also be loaded using the --plugin option. You can use this argument multiple times:

dotbot --plugin dotbot-plugins/dotbot-brew/ --plugin dotbot-plugins/custom_plugin.py ...

Paths specified this way are interpreted relative to the working directory where dotbot is invoked.

It is recommended that these options are added directly to your install script for consistency across installations.

Command-line arguments

Dotbot takes a number of command-line arguments; you can run Dotbot with --help, for example, by running ./install --help, to see the full list of options. Here, we highlight a couple that are particularly interesting.

--dry-run

You can call ./install --dry-run, and Dotbot will explain what it would do, without actually making any changes. This can be helpful for safely testing your configuration. Plugins that don't support dry-run will be skipped.

--only

You can call ./install --only [list of directives], such as ./install --only link, and Dotbot will only run those sections of the config file.

--except

You can call ./install --except [list of directives], such as ./install --except shell, and Dotbot will run all the sections of the config file except the ones listed.

Wiki

Check out the Dotbot wiki for more information, tips and tricks, user-contributed plugins, and more.

Contributing

Do you have a feature request, bug report, or patch? Great! See CONTRIBUTING.md for information on what you can do about that.

License

Copyright (c) Anish Athalye. Released under the MIT License. See LICENSE.md for details.