# dfm A dotfile manager for lazy people and pair programmers. ## Table of Contents - [Features](#features) - [Multiple dotfile profiles](#multiple-dotfile-profiles) - [Profile modules](#profile-modules) - [Pre and post command hooks](#pre-and-post-command-hooks) - [Respects `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME`](#respects-xdg_config_home) - [Skips relevant files](#skips-relevant-files) - [Configurable mappings](#custom-mappings) - [Encrypted Dotfiles](#encrypted-dotfiles) - [Installation](#installation) - [Updating](#updating) - [Usage](#usage) - [Git quick start](#git-quick-start) - [Existing dotfiles repository](#quick-start-existing-dotfiles-repository) - [No existing dotfiles repository](#quick-start-no-existing-dotfiles-repository) - [Configuration](#configuration) - [Contributing](#contributing) - [License](#license) ## Features dfm supports these features that I was unable to find in other Dotfile Management solutions. ### Multiple dotfile profiles dfm's core feature is the idea of profiles. Profiles are simply a collection of dotfiles that dfm manages and links in the `$HOME` directory or configuration directories. This means that you can have multiple profiles and overlap them. This feature is hard to describe, so I will illustrate it's usefulness with two use cases: #### The work profile I use one laptop for work and personal projects in my dfm profiles I have my personal profile `chasinglogic` which contains all my dotfiles for Emacs, git, etc. and a "work" profile which only has a `.gitconfig` that has my work email in it. So my profile directory looks like this: ```text profiles/ ├── chasinglogic │   ├── agignore │   ├── bash │   ├── bashrc │   ├── gitconfig │   ├── gnupg │   ├── password-store │   ├── pypirc │   ├── spacemacs.d │   └── tmux.conf └── work └── gitconfig ``` Since dfm when linking only overwrites the files which are in the new profile, I can run `dfm link work` and still have access to my emacs configuration but my `gitconfig` has been updated to use my work email. Similarly when I leave work I just `dfm link chasinglogic` to switch back. See [profile modules](#profile-modules) for an even better solution to this particular use case. #### Pair programming The original inspiration for this tool was pair programming with my friend [lionize](https://github.com/lionize). lionize has a dotfiles repository so I can clone it using the git backend for dfm with `dfm clone --name lionize https://github.com/lionize/dotfiles`. Now our profile directory looks like: ```text profiles/ ├── chasinglogic │   ├── .dfm.yml │   ├── .git │   ├── .gitignore │   ├── agignore │   ├── bash │   ├── bashrc │   ├── gitconfig │   ├── gnupg │   ├── password-store │   ├── pypirc │   ├── spacemacs.d │   └── tmux.conf ├── lionize │   ├── .agignore │   ├── .git │   ├── .gitconfig │   ├── .gitignore_global │   ├── .gitmessage │   ├── .scripts │   ├── .tmux.conf │   ├── .vim │   ├── .vimrc -> ./.vim/init.vim │   └── .zshrc └── work ├── .git └── gitconfig ``` Now when I'm driving I simply `dfm link chasinglogic` and when passing back to lionize he runs `dfm link lionize` and we don't have to mess with multiple machines vice versa. ### Profile modules dfm supports profile modules which can be either additional dotfiles profiles as accepted by the `dfm clone` command or can be any git repository such as [Spacemacs](https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs). You can get more info about how to use them and configure them in [Configuration](#configuration) ### Pre and Post command hooks dfm supports pre and post command hooks. that allows you to specify before and after command scripts to run. For example, I use a profile module to keep certain ssh keys in an encrypted git repository. Whenever I run the `dfm sync` command I have hooks which fix the permissions of the keys and ssh-add them to my ssh agent. You can read about how to write your own hooks in [Configuration](#configuration) ### Respects `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME` dfm respects dotfiles which exist in the `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME` directory, meaning if in your repository you have a folder named `config` or `.config` it'll translate those into the `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME` directory automatically. Similarly when using `dfm add` if inside your `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME` or $HOME/.configuration directories it'll add those to the repository appropriately. ### Skips relevant files dfm by default will skip multiple relevant files. - .git dfm will skip the .git directory so your `$HOME` directory isn't turned into a git repository. - .gitignore If you would like to store a global `.gitignore` file you can either omit the leading dot (so just `gitignore`) or name the global one `.ggitignore` and dfm will translate the name for you. Otherwise it assumes that `.gitignore` is the gitignore for the profile's repository and so skips it. - README Want to make a README for your dotfiles? Go ahead! As long as the file name starts with README dfm will ignore it. So `README.txt` `README.md` and `README.rst` or whatever other permutations you can dream up all work. - LICENSE You should put a LICENSE on all code you put on the internet and some dotfiles / configurations are actual code (See: Emacs). If you put a LICENSE in your profile dfm will respect you being a good open source citizen and not clutter your `$HOME` directory. - .dfm.yml This is a special dfm file used for hooks today and in the future for other ways to extend dfm. As such dfm doesn't put it in your `$HOME` directory. ### Custom mappings The above ignores are implemented as a dfm feature called Mappings. You can write your own mappings to either skip, skip based on platform or translate files to different locations than dfm would normally place them. You can read how to configure your own mappings in [Configuration](#configuration) ### Encrypted Dotfiles Using hooks and mappings you can integrate GPG with DFM to have an encrypted dotfiles repository. If you add the following `.dfm.yml` to your repository per the [Configuration](#configuration) documentation: ```yaml --- mappings: - match: '.*.gpg' skip: true hooks: before_sync: - interpreter: /bin/bash -c script: | echo "encrypting files..." for file in $(find . -not -name '*.gpg' -not -name '.dfm.yml' -not -name '.gitignore' -not -path './.git/*'); do echo "Encrypting $file to ${file/.gpg/}" gpg --batch --yes --encrypt ${file/.gpg/} done after_sync: - interpreter: /bin/bash -c script: | for file in $(git ls-files | grep -v .dfm.yml | grep -v .gitignore); do gpg --batch --yes --decrypt -o ${file/.gpg/} $file done ``` And the following `.gitignore` file: ``` * !*/ !.gitignore !.dfm.yml !*.gpg ``` Then when running `dfm sync` DFM will run the gpg command to encrypt all your files, then git will ignore all non-GPG encrypted files (due to the `.gitignore`), and after syncing DFM will decrypt all the GPG encrypted files. This all happens before linking, when you run `dfm link` DFM will ignore all gpg encrypted files due to the `mapping` configuration. It will then only link the unencrypted versions into your home directory. ## Installation ### Install from Release dfm is available on Github Releases and should be installed from there. The latest release is available [here](https://github.com/chasinglogic/dfm/releases). Download the archive that is appropriate for your platform and extract the binary into your `$PATH`. A common valid path location is `/usr/local/bin`. You can run these commands to automate this install (on most platforms, it does not always work): ``` platform=$(uname -s) arch=$(uname -m) # If you're running on an M1 Macbook run this: # arch="x86_64" download_url=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/chasinglogic/dfm/releases/latest | grep "browser_download_url.*$arch.*${platform,,}" | cut -d : -f 2,3 | sed 's/"//g' | xargs) curl -L -o /tmp/dfm.tar.gz "$download_url" tar -C /tmp -xzvf /tmp/dfm.tar.gz mv $(find /$(readlink /tmp) -perm +111 -type f -name dfm 2>/dev/null) /usr/local/bin/ ``` ### Install from Source You will need a [rust](https://rustup.rs) compiler to build dfm from source. Clone the repository and run `./scripts/local_install.sh`: ```bash git clone https://github.com/chasinglogic/dfm cd dfm ./scripts/local_install.sh ``` > It's possible that for your system you will need to run the install > script with sudo. ## Usage ```text A dotfile manager written for pair programmers and lazy people. Examples on getting started with dfm are available at https://github.com/chasinglogic/dfm Usage: dfm Commands: where Prints the location of the current dotfile profile [aliases: w] status Print the git status of the current dotfile profile [aliases: st] git Run the given git command on the current profile [aliases: g] list List available dotfile profiles on this system [aliases: ls] link Create links for a profile [aliases: l] init Create a new profile [aliases: i] remove Remove a profile [aliases: rm] run-hook Run dfm hooks without using normal commands [aliases: rh] sync Sync your dotfiles [aliases: s] clone Use git clone to download an existing profile clean Clean dead symlinks. Will ignore symlinks unrelated to DFM. add Add files to the current dotfile profile gen-completions Generate shell completions and print them to stdout help Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s) Options: -h, --help Print help -V, --version Print version ``` ## Quick start ### Quick start (Existing dotfiles repository) If you already have a dotfiles repository you can start by cloning it using the clone command. > SSH URLs will work as well. ```bash dfm clone https://github.com/chasinglogic/dotfiles ``` If you're using GitHub you can shortcut the domain: ```bash dfm clone chasinglogic/dotfiles ``` If you want to clone and link the dotfiles in one command: ```bash dfm clone --link chasinglogic/dotfiles ``` You may have to use `--overwrite` as well if you have existing non-symlinked versions of your dotfiles Once you have multiple profiles you can switch between them using `dfm link` ```bash dfm link some-other-profile ``` See the Usage Notes below for some quick info on what to expect from other dfm commands. ### Quick Start (No existing dotfiles repository) If you don't have a dotfiles repository the best place to start is with `dfm init` ```bash dfm init my-new-profile ``` Then run `dfm link` to set it as the active profile, this is also how you switch profiles ```bash dfm link my-new-profile ``` Once that's done you can start adding your dotfiles ```bash dfm add ~/.bashrc ``` Alternatively you can add multiple files at once ```bash dfm add ~/.bashrc ~/.vimrc ~/.vim ~/.emacs.d ``` Then create your dotfiles repository on GitHub. Instructions for how to do that can be found [here](https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/quickstart/create-a-repo). Once that's done get the "clone" URL for your new repository and set it as origin for the profile: **Note:** When creating the remote repository don't choose any options such as "initialize this repository with a README" otherwise git'll get cranky when you add the remote because of a recent git update and how it handles [unrelated histories](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/37937984/git-refusing-to-merge-unrelated-histories) if you do don't worry the linked post explains how to get past it. ```bash dfm git remote add origin ``` Then simply run `dfm sync` to sync your dotfiles to the remote ```bash dfm sync ``` Now you're done! ## Configuration dfm supports a `.dfm.yml` file in the root of your repository that changes dfm's behavior when syncing and linking your profile. This file will be ignored when doing a `dfm link` so won't end up in your home directory. The `.dfm.yml` can be used to configure these features: - [Modules](#modules) - [Mappings](#mappings) - [Hooks](#hooks) ### Modules Modules in dfm are sub profiles. They're git repositories that are cloned into a a special directory: `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/dfm/modules`. They're shared across profiles so if two dotfile profiles have the same module they'll share that module. The syntax for defining a minimum module is as follows: ```yaml modules: - repository: git@github.com:chasinglogic/dotfiles ``` This would clone my dotfiles repository as a module into `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/dfm/modules/chasinglogic`. If I wanted to use a unique name or some other folder name so it wouldn't be shared you can specify an additional option `name`: ```yaml modules: - repository: git@github.com:chasinglogic/dotfiles name: chasinglogic-dotfiles ``` Which would instead clone into `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/dfm/modules/chasinglogic-dotfiles`. You can define multiple modules: ```yaml modules: - repository: git@github.com:chasinglogic/dotfiles name: chasinglogic-dotfiles - repository: git@github.com:lionize/dotfiles ``` Make sure that you specify a name if the resulting clone location as defined by git would conflict as we see here. Both of these would have been cloned into dotfiles which would cause the clone to fail for the second module if we didn't specify name for chasinglogic's dotfiles. An additional use for modules is that of a git repository you want to clone but not link. An example use would be for downloading [Spacemacs](https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs) or any such community configuration like oh-my-zsh, etc. ```yaml modules: - repo: git@github.com:syl20bnr/spacemacs link: none pull_only: true location: ~/.emacs.d ``` Here we specify a few extra keys. There purpose should be self explanatory but if you're curious [below](#available-keys) is a detailed explanation of all keys that each module configuration supports. Modules work just like any other dfm profile so if a module you're pulling in has a `.dfm.yml` in it that will be loaded and executed accordingly. Including pulling down any modules it defines. #### Available keys - [repo](#repo) - [name](#name) - [location](#location) - [link](#link) - [pull\_only](#pull\_only) - [mappings](#mappings) - [clone\_flags](#clone\_flags) ##### repo Required, this is the git repository to clone for the module. ##### name This changes the cloned name. This only has an effect if location isn't provided. Normally a git repository would be cloned into `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/dfm/modules` and the resulting folder would be named whatever git decides it should be based on the git URL. If this is provided it'll be cloned into the modules directory with the specified name. This is useful if multiple profiles use the same module. ##### location If provided module will be cloned into the specified location. You can use the `~` bash expansion here to represent `$HOME`. No other expansions are available. This option is useful for cloning community configurations like oh-my-zsh or spacemacs. ##### link Determines when to link the module. Link in this context means that it'll be treated like a normal dotfile profile, so all files will go through the same translation rules as a regular profile and be linked accordingly. Available values are `post`, `pre`, and `none`. `post` is the default and means that the module will be linked after the parent profile. "pre" means this will be linked before the parent profile, use this if for instance you want to use most files from this profile and override a few files with those from the parent file since dfm will overwrite the links with the last one found. "none" means the module is not a dotfiles profile and shouldn't be linked at all, an example being community configuration repositories like oh-my-zsh or spacemacs. ##### pull\_only If set to `true` won't attempt to push any changes. It's important to know that dfm always tries to push to origin master, so if you don't have write access to the repository or don't want it to automatically push to master then you should set this to true. This is useful for community configuration repositories. ##### mappings A list of file mappings as described below in [Mappings](#mappings). Modules do not inherit parent mappings, they do however inherit the default mappings as described in [Skips Relevant Files](#skips-relevant-files) ##### clone\_flags A list of strings that will be added to the `git clone` command when cloning the module. Useful if the module is using git submodules or otherwise needs specialised cloning behavior. An example would be: ```yaml - repository: https://github.com/akinomyoga/ble.sh clone_flags: ["--recursive", "--depth=1", "--shallow-submodules"] hooks: after_sync: - make -C ble.sh install PREFIX=~/.local ``` ### Mappings Mappings are a way of defining custom file locations. To understand mappings one must understand dfm's default link behavior: #### Default behavior For an example let's say you have a file named `my_config.txt` in your dotfile repository. dfm will try and translate that to a new location of `$HOME/.my_config.txt`. It'll then create a symlink at that location pointing to `my_config.txt` in your dotfile repository. #### Using mappings With mappings you can replace this behavior and make it so dfm will link `my_config` wherever you wish. This is useful if you need to store config files that are actually global. Such as configuration files that would go into `/etc/` or if you want to sync some files in your repo but not link them. Here is a simple example: ```yaml mappings: - match: .config/some-dir link_as_dir: true - match: my_global_etc_files target_dir: /etc/ - match: something_want_to_skip_but_sync skip: true - match: something_only_for_macos target_os: "Darwin" - match: some_file_for_mac_and_linux_only target_os: - "Linux" - "Darwin" - match: some_specific_translation_for_mac dest: ~/.mac_os_dotfile target_os: - "Darwin" ``` Here dfm uses the match as a regular expression to match the file paths in your dotfile repository. When it finds a path which matches the regular expression it adds an alternative linking behavior. For anything where `skip` is true it simply skips linking. For anything with `target_dir` that value will override `$HOME` when linking. For anything with a `target_os` value the file will only be linked if dfm is being run on the given os. ##### Link as Dir Mappings Above you can see a mapping using the `link_as_dir` option. When this is set to `true` for a mapping the `match:` value will be used as a directory relative to the root of the dotfile repo and will be linked as a directory. Normally DFM only links files, this can cause issues with some types of configuration where you regularly generate files like snippet tools. Consider the following dotfiles in a dotfile repository: ``` $REPO/.config/nvim ├── UltiSnips │   ├── gitcommit.snippets │   └── python.snippets ``` That would produce the following links in `$HOME/.config/nvim`: ``` $HOME/.config/nvim ├── UltiSnips │   ├── gitcommit.snippets -> $HOME/.config/dfm/profiles/chasinglogic/.config/nvim/UltiSnips/gitcommit.snippets │   └── python.snippets -> $HOME/.config/dfm/profiles/chasinglogic/.config/nvim/UltiSnips/python.snippets ``` Every time you used `:UltiSnipsEdit` to create a new snippet file type you'd have to then remember to manually move that into your dotfile repository and re-run `dfm link`. To solve this problem you can use the following mapping in your `.dfm.yml` you can instead link `UltiSnips` the directory instead of it's files: ``` mappings: - match: .config/nvim/UltiSnips link_as_dir: true ``` Now DFM links the `$HOME/.config/nvim/UltiSnips` directory to the `$REPO/.config/nvim/UltiSnips`: ``` $HOME/.config/nvim ├── UltiSnips -> $HOME/.config/dfm/profiles/chasinglogic/.config/nvim/UltiSnips ``` #### Available configuration Mappings support the following configuration options: - [match](#match) - [skip](#skip) - [dest](#dest) - [target\_dir](#target\_dir) - [target\_os](#target\_os) ##### match Match is a regular expression used to match the file path of any files in your dotfile repository. This is used to determine if the custom linking behavior for a file should be used. These are python style regular expressions and are matched using the [`re.findall`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html#re.findall) method so are by default fuzzy matching. ##### skip If provided the file/s will not be linked. ##### dest The new full path to the file. This can be used to completely change a file's name or put it in a wholly new location. This is more explicity than `target_dir` and covers cases that `target_dir` is not suited for (for example if a file is a dotfile on one OS but not on another.) ##### target\_dir Where to link the file to. The `~` expansion for `$HOME` is supported here but no other expansions are available. It is worth noting that if you're using `~` in your target_dir then you should probably just create the directory structure in your git repo. ##### target\_os A string or list of strings matching the OS's to link this file on. A non-exhaustive list of common values are: `Linux`, `Darwin`, or `Windows`. This matches the string returned by [Python's `platform.system()` function.](https://docs.python.org/3/library/platform.html#platform.system) ### Hooks Hooks in dfm are used for those few extra tasks that you need to do whenever your dotfiles are synced or linked. An example from my personal dotfiles is running an Ansible playbook whenever I sync my dotfiles. To accomplish this I wrote an `after_sync` hook as follows: ```yaml hooks: after_sync: - ansible-playbook ansible/dev-mac.yml ``` Now whenever I sync my dotfiles Ansible will run my `dev-mac` playbook to make sure that my packages etc are also in sync! The hooks option is just a YAML map which supports the following keys: `after_link`, `before_link`, `after_sync`, and `before_sync`. The values of any of those keys is a YAML list of strings which will be executed in a shell via `/bin/sh -c '$YOUR COMMAND'`. An example would be: ```yaml hooks: after_link: - ls -l - whoami - echo "All done!" ``` All commands are ran with a working directory of your dotfile repository and the current process environment is passed down to the process so you can use `$HOME` etc environment variables in your commands. By default the comamnds will run with the interpreter `/bin/sh -c`. So the expanded comamnd line for the first hook above would be: ``` /bin/sh -c 'ls -l' ``` If you want to use a different interpreter you can use instead use this hook format: ``` hooks: after_link: - interpreter: python -c script: | print("hello world from Python") ``` You may want to do this in cases where you need complex logic (like that which should live in a Python script) or for example on Debian based systems which use dash instead of bash as the /bin/sh interpreter and so have a very limited expansion feature set. ## Contributing 1. Fork it! 2. Create your feature branch: `git checkout -b my-new-feature` 3. Commit your changes: `git commit -am 'Add some feature'` 4. Push to the branch: `git push origin my-new-feature` 5. :fire: Submit a pull request :D :fire: All pull requests should go to the develop branch not master. Thanks! ## License This code is distributed under the GNU General Public License ``` Copyright (C) 2018 Mathew Robinson This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see . ```