dotcopy

Dotcopy tries to solve the following problem:

I want to have the same dotfile templates across all of my machines, but with a couple change between them

It allows you to make your dotfiles DRY across mutliple machines.

CLI

NAME:
   dotcopy - Builds your dotfiles. See https://dotcopy.firesquid.co

USAGE:
   dotcopy [global options] command [command options]

COMMANDS:
   init     Initializes a basic localconfig
   version  Prints the version of dotcopy
   help, h  Shows a list of commands or help for one command

GLOBAL OPTIONS:
   --silent -s -d, -s -s -d         Silence all output to stdout. Use -s -d to silence all out
put. (default: false)
   --disable-notifications, -d, -n  Disable system notifications (default: false)
   --help, -h                       show help

Install

You can install dotcopy using an install script like so:

curl -fsSL https://dotcopy.firesquid.co/install.sh | bash

Additionally, dotcopy has a nixkpg called dotcopy. You can install that however you'd like.

Walkthrough

Initializing

Dotcopy depends on a file called localconfig.yaml in ~/.config/dotcopy. It should look something like this:

root_filepath: /etc/nixos/dotfiles # where your dotfiles are stored. I keep mine in my nixos folder.
machine_directory: kotoko # Your machine's hostname most likely

This file should be different on each of your machines. If it is not found, dotcopy uses this config:

root_filepath: <HOME_DIRECTORY>/dotfiles
machine_directory: <HOSTNAME>

Note: all yaml files need to use .yaml and not .yml. I am rejected the idea that one file format needs two extensions

The Dotfiles Directory

The dotfiles directory should have a heirchy that looks something like this:

dotfiles/
  dotcopy.yaml

  i3
  kitty.conf
  < All of my other dotfile templates >
  <machine-name>/
    i3.slot
    kitty.slot.conf

All of your dotfiles go in the root, while the "slots" for them go inside separate folders for each machine

The dotcopy.yaml file

The dotcopy.yaml file tells dotcopy where your dotfiles go. It should look like:

- template: i3 # filepath relative to the root
  slotfile: i3.slot # filepath relative to the machine directory
  location: /home/firesquid/.config/i3/config # where to put the compiled file
- template: kitty.conf
  slotfile: "" # my kitty.conf doesn't need to change, so the slotfile is nothing
  location: /home/firesquid/.config/kitty/kitty.conf
# ...
# more dotfiles if necessary

Compiling Dotfiles

Dotcopy will analyze a template file for slots and then insert into them. Let's see an example.

Imagine I have this dotfile called font-file.txt in my root:

# font-file
# a magical dotfile that changes your font size

font-size: 10

# pretend there's a bunch of complicated

On my machine chisato, I want to have font-size be 10, but on kotoko, I want it to be 12. First, I change the template file in the root:

# font-file
# a magical dotfile that changes your font size

font-size: {{font-size}}

# pretend there's a bunch of complicated

I also define this in my dotcopy.yaml:

- template: font-file.txt
  slotfile: font-file.slot.txt
  location: ~/.config/font-file/config.txt

Now in my chisato machine directory, I create a file called font-file.slot.txt. It looks like:

--- {{font-size}}
10
---

# I could add more values using that same syntax if I wanted to

You can repeat this process for all of your dotfiles.

FAQ

Why use this when home manger exists?

Home manager is great! However, it has some things that make it not perfect for everyone:

• it only works on nix
• it forces everything to be in nix (not a bad thing, just not what everyone wants)
• you can't do the different stuff for different machines with home-manager (ig you could import stuff from a different file in gitignore maybe but that's a pain)

Does this waste disk space?

Yes - dotcopy does waste some disk space by copying your dotfiles. However, it shouldn't be more than a couple of megabytes.