dotlink

Introduction

dotlink is a simple dotfile manager.

Imagine you keep all your configuration in ~/etc:

$ tree ~/etc
/home/user/etc
├── git
│   ├── dotlink.conf
│   ├── gitconfig
│   └── gitignore
├── vim
│   ├── colors
│   │   └── light.vim
│   ├── dotlink.conf
│   ├── gvimrc
│   └── vimrc
└── zsh
    ├── dotlink.conf
    ├── zshenv
    └── zshrc

Files dotlink.conf specify how the dotfiles should be installed:

$ cat etc/git/dotlink.conf
[slink]
gitconfig=~/.gitconfig
gitignore=~/.gitignore

Here, git's dotfiles should be installed as symbolic links to the specified paths.

dotlink performs their install with a simple command:

$ dotlink install etc/git

You can confirm that the files were properly installed. Either manually:

$ ls -l ~/.git*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user users 28 1970-01-01 00:00 /home/user/.gitconfig -> /home/user/etc/git/gitconfig
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user users 28 1970-01-01 00:00 /home/user/.gitignore -> /home/user/etc/git/gitignore

Or better, via dotlink itself:

$ dotlink status etc/git
[slink]: 'etc/git/gitconfig' => '~/.gitconfig'
[slink]: 'etc/git/gitignore' => '~/.gitignore'

Install

Local

dotlink is a simple bash script. If you want, you can simply download it and drop it into your dotfiles folder. This way it'll always be there wherever your dotfiles are.

System-wide

Git

$ git clone
$ cd dotlink
$ sudo make install

Archlinux

A package is available in AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/dotlink-git/. Use your favorite AUR installer, such as yay:

$ yay -S dotlink-git

Usage

dotlink.conf format

dotlink.conf files loosely follow the INI file format, using sections under which keys are associated to values.

[section_a]
key_a=value_a

[section_b]
key_b=value_b

A key is the target file (or directory) located in your dotfile folder, while a value is the destination's path to which the target should be installed.

A target file should be expressed as a relative path from where the dotlink.conf file is located. The destination should be expressed as an absolute path.

The section above key/value pairs specifies how the targets should be installed. There are four type of section:

• slink: install targets as a symbolic link
• hlink: install targets as a hard link
• copy: install targets as a copy
• ignore: do not install the targets (and don't complain about it)

dotlink program

$ dotlink -h
Usage: dotlink [options] <command> <targets>...

Options:
   -h/-?/--help    Display this help message
   -v/--verbose    Verbose mode
   -n/--dryrun     Dryrun mode

Command:
   install         Install <targets>
   uninstall       Uninstall <targets>
   status          Get status about <targets>

Credit and license

dotlink was written by Joël Porquet-Lupine and is licensed under the GPLv2+.

For many parts of this work, I found inspiration in pass, the famous password manager written by the great Jason Donenfeld.