Another approach that avoids symlinks and avoids a git repo in $HOME (i.e. everything is a subdir of that git repo) is to use the option "git-dir" to clone into

Another approach that avoids symlinks and avoids a git repo in $HOME (i.e. everything is a subdir of that git repo) is to use the option "git-dir" to clone into a subdir, e.g. `$HOME/.dotfiles/` but checkout into $HOME: git clone --bare git@github.com:.../dotfiles.git $HOME/.dotfiles git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ --work-tree=$HOME checkout alias dotfiles='git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ --work-tree=$HOME' dotfiles config --local status.showUntrackedFiles no Now the "dotfiles"-alias can be used like git, "dotfiles add, checkout, log", no symlinks are needed and you avoid "contaminating" subdirs of $HOME (git searches parent dirs for ".git", so a ".git" folder in $HOME kinda sucks)