hayeah/dotfiles

Dotfiles Management

Manage dotfiles via DotfileStow — a custom symlink manager replacing chezmoi.

How It Works

All managed dotfiles live in <repo>/dotfiles/. The dotfiles pymake task walks this directory and creates symlinks in $HOME.

File Suffix Conventions

| Suffix | Behavior | Target name | Output type | |---|---|---|---| | (none) | Symlink source file into $HOME | Same as source | Symlink | | .tmpl | Render with string.Template, write to target | Suffix stripped | Copied file | | .symlink | Read content as symlink target (path relative to file's own dir), create symlink | Suffix stripped | Symlink |

Template Variables

Defined in <repo>/.dotfiles.toml:

[vars]
gitName = "Howard Yeh"
gitEmail = "[email protected]"

Used in .tmpl files as $gitName or ${gitEmail}.

Adding a New Dotfile

• Plain file: create it under dotfiles/ at the path mirroring $HOME
  • e.g. dotfiles/.zshrc → ~/.zshrc
• Template: add .tmpl suffix, use $var syntax
  • e.g. dotfiles/.gitconfig.tmpl → ~/.gitconfig
• Symlink to repo file: create a .symlink file with the relative path
  • e.g. dotfiles/.claude/CLAUDE.md.symlink containing ../../AGENTS.md

Applying

pymake dotfiles              # apply (skips existing correct symlinks)
pymake dotfiles --vars dotfiles.force=true   # overwrite conflicts
pymake                       # full refresh: dotfiles + tmux plugins + mise + skills

Key Files

• dotfile_stow.py — DotfileStow class implementation
• dotfile_stow_test.py — pytest tests
• .dotfiles.toml — template variable definitions
• dotfiles/ — all managed dotfiles
• docs/dotfile-stow-design.md — full design doc