6 ms·

Dotter: Dotfile manager and templater written in Rust

96 points by nateb2022 1y ago

phren0logy 1y ago
Now that 20225 has become “The Year of the Terminal”(R), I have been looking at how managing my dot files in a more coherent way. I was thinking straight up git vs stow, but I should would be very interested in comparisons from those who have used this tool.
- gaweringo 1y ago
  I found it quite useful. My main use case for it is managing the same dotfiles for Windows and Linux. Specifically that neovim uses different folders and I can set that per OS in dotter. It also allows for including our not including a config based on an executable being available which can be useful. It requires some configuration, depending on how many of its features you use but I think it's worth it.
  - phren0logy 1y ago
    Thanks. I’m between Omarchy and MacOS mostly, but sometimes Windows, too. Seems worth putting some time into it.
- vault 1y ago
  I've been using "homegit" for years and never felt the need for a replacement. https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles
  - tonymet 1y ago
    great tip! also for /etc
- daedalus_j 1y ago
  Chezmoi is what you want. I haven't looked at this one yet, but until someone compares it to Chezmoi and points out where it's better I'm not even looking attention I fear. Chezmoi is just that good.
  - mr_mitm 1y ago
    How do you manage system wide settings? I've been using ansible, but it seems a bit overkill. I feel it's over complicating things.
    - skydhash 1y ago
      Not GP. I tarball /etc. On a new system, I restore config quite carefully.
    - nickjj 1y ago
      I use my dotfiles repo for this. For example in my dotfiles repo I'll have `etc/pacman.d/01-options.conf` and the dotfiles install script will symlink that to `/etc/pacman.d/01-options.conf`. This way the source of truth is always in a single dotfiles repo. This strategy has worked well for dotfiles I use on Arch, Debian, Ubuntu and macOS. It includes support for WSL 2 too. The install script has been working with this set up for years to run 1 single command and have everything work where work in this case is installing and configuring a bunch of tools I use. An example is here https://github.com/nickjj/dotfiles https://github.com/nickjj/dotfiles.
    - theshrike79 1y ago
      I have a multi-tier system. Chezmoi manages stuff that's in my /home - configurations, scripts in ~/bin/ etc. It also installs a bunch of applications with a runonce_ -script both on Linux and MacOS. Ansible makes sure the correct system-level packages are installed, things in /etc/ are set up the way I like etc. There's a bunch of overlap with the packages installed by ansible and Chezmoi - but I run `chezmoi update` multiple times a week an I can run it on any computer I'm on. Ansible is for Big Things. Then I have an opentofu setup that manages a bunch of docker containers, keeping them as stateful as possible. For daily simple things, I can just edit any config file, add it to chezmoi and push it to git. Then on any machine I can `chezmoi update` and everything is synced.
  - announcer4614 1y ago
    For the sake of answering the parent question with regard to Chezmoi specifically: Chezmoi is a very comprehensive dotfiles manager. It can do a lot of things. More than any other I'm aware of. More does not necessarily equal better, though. I think that's a matter of personal preference. I tried Chezmoi for a while and ultimately decided it was just a lot more levers at my disposal than I really wanted to even think about. Dotter, by contrast, is a lot more minimal. Dotter is little more than a symlink manager plus templating engine plus config files to declare what machines need what config. Chezmoi is all that, and does a lot more: encryption/decryption (even has password manager integrations), automatic push/pull. It's also designed so that you can add or manage files regardless of what your current working directory is (via commands like `chezmoi edit/add`). In my case, after deciding I wanted to go for the minimal end of things, I almost went for GNU Stow however, I wanted templating functionality and I liked dotter's "packages" system for defining what files a given computer needs. And very much a personal bias here: I found the learning curve of Chezmoi templates not great. I'm also not a big fan of the fact that Chezmoi relies on you naming your source files in particular ways in order to determine what the target file permissions should be.
- bbkane 1y ago
  If all you want is GNU Stow with a bit nicer UX, I wrote and have been using https://github.com/bbkane/fling https://github.com/bbkane/fling for a few years now. See the demo gif in the README for the UX
- integrii 1y ago
  I made a post recently on HN about this. All you need is git. It does everything. I didn't know why people want symlinks and everything else. https://ericgreer.info/post/2025-08-31-simple-dotfiles-script/ https://ericgreer.info/post/2025-08-31-simple-dotfiles-scrip...
  - kirici 1y ago
    I was using "just git" until I realized I've started writing a whole bunch of scripts of various types to recreate ("ad-hoc, informally specified and bug-ridden...") functionality that chezmoi offers out of the box and has already tested in the field.
defraudbah 1y ago
I wish it had more examples or some basic documentation website, it looks interesting cuz i have a lot of context switching through all my tools.
jzelinskie 1y ago
I've seen projects like this for years and I still have the genuinely honest question: what are people doing that managing their dotfiles is significant problem for them? I've managed my dotfiles (12 different configuration files all compatible with cygwin, wsl, linux, macOS) for the past decade in a git repo with a 50 LOC shell script that creates symlinks for me in an intelligent way. What am I missing?
- loloquwowndueo 1y ago
  I use chezmoi, and I didn’t have to write a 50-line script - just install chezmoi on a new machine, run a command pointing it to a git repo, and up pop all the dot files and configs I need to have a consistent environment everywhere. Chezmoi also handles variations in config files for personal vs. Work machines, or even differences between machines themselves. I agree it’s not a tremendous lift to write a bespoke solution for this (and I did so in the past) but at some point it becomes lower-effort to use something off the shelf.
  - msdz 1y ago
    In addition to that, chezmoi templating can be used to fill in environment variables like secret keys, you just need to unlock rbw or whatever other password manager it is that you use. I have some that I export in my shell config, and this setup allows me to have the repo in a public place and not worry about who finds it.
- TheDong 1y ago
  I use home-manager for my dotfiles, and they manage quite a few things. For example: 1. My editor config (neovim) including downloading and installing all my plugins, including the dependencies of the plugins (including deno, rust-analyzer, clippy, etc) 2. All the other tools I use, like ripgrep, python, and so on, including installing the same version on every machine I've got. 3. A bunch of misc programs and scripts I've written for myself, including all their dependencies 4. All the xdg configuration to open http links in the right browser profile, pdfs in evince, etc, as well as all the programs needed for that 5. systemd user units to run various daemons, like syncthing to sync some documents between computers, gpg-agent, etc etc. And this works on all machines running any linux distro, from arch linux to nixos to ubuntu. home-manager is just another dotfile manager, but since nix makes packages isolated, such that my user version of $pkg doesn't conflict or depend on the host version, home-manaer can also safely manage applications I run, like my editor, browser, developer tools, systemd units, etc etc etc. I agree that most dotfile managers are weird overengineered projects that could have been a short shell script. I think nix+home-manager is a weird overengineered project that could not have been a shell script.
tracker1 1y ago
I have a backup/restore set of scripts that copies my dot files over as well as a few directories as a whole via rsync. My only big issue is how big ~/.config/ gets as a directory compared to how much I really want to keep/need in terms of a fresh setup. Similar for my ~/src/ directory, with all the ./.git/ files. I kind of wish there were a "smarter" backup/restore tool that could handle a few of these things better than ham-fisting and rsyncing all the things.. I was more selective in my restore when configuring my new computer earlier in the year.
- skydhash 1y ago
  Try Stow. You can create packages for your stuff and symlink the files as needed. I have packages like git, shell, mail,…
  - tonymet 1y ago
    stow is great and I used it for many years. it's very "unix-y" in that it favors FS entries over complicated DBs / config.
pentracchiano 1y ago
Why is "written in Rust" as important as what the software is about? I noticed this tendency of specifying when something is written in Rust. Should it be an indicator of better stability? Or performance? And if so, am I interested in the performance of a dotfile tool? Genuinely curious.
- tonymet 1y ago
  [flagged]
- turtlebits 1y ago
  Easy to deploy, usually single static binaries. Same goes with Golang projects. Polar opposite of java (which I'll totally ignore).
  - serbuvlad 1y ago
    Very funny to me that Java's initial appeal: it's easy to deploy "everywhere"; is now it's disadvantage (you need a whole Java setup with JAVA_HOME and God knows what else). Now the bar for GUI apps is cross-compilation to deployable web, Windows, Linux (Electron), Android, iOS (? I don't know I don't use/develop for Apple products) versions from running a simple command. And for the CLI world, well, almost everyone is on Linux x86-64, or maybe arm, so a few static binaries (or "virtually" static -- depending only on glibc) are king for deployment.
    - nirvdrum 1y ago
      I don’t find installing a JVM a massive amount of work (no more so than any other interpreted language), but nowadays you can AOT compile Java to a native binary if that’s your hang-up: https://www.graalvm.org/jdk24/reference-manual/native-image/ https://www.graalvm.org/jdk24/reference-manual/native-image/ There’s a new LTS release with improvements coming out next week.
      - turtlebits 1y ago
tonymet 1y ago
git bare repo handles dotfiles better than any bespoke platform 1. git is already there and familiar 2. sync dotfiles over ssh . no internet access or separate credentials needed (for github, s3 etc) 3. handles merge conflicts 4. easily push & pull subdirectories into /etc , /usr/local or wherever else you need configuration using git subtree. git bare repo works for tracking files anywhere on the FS as well. (check debian etckeeper for automating that) credit: https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles
- eviks 1y ago
  How does your bare repo handle a config file in different paths on Windows and MacOS where you want to ignore "last_update_time" field diff noise and also have OS-specific path references?
  - jitl 1y ago
    using windows is out of scope for my lifestyle
  - hk1337 1y ago
    Different branches for each OS.
    - eviks 1y ago
      How does this help > ignore "last_update_time" field diff Also, OS-specific is in the env var (can also be machine specific, so now you have OS*machine number of branches?)
    - jitl 1y ago
      sounds annoying af
  - tonymet 1y ago
    branches and symlinks . Don't throw out the 99% solution because it's missing 1%
threemux 1y ago
I just use a git repo and GNU Stow similar to the approach in this post (I'm not the author of the post): https://tamerlan.dev/how-i-manage-my-dotfiles-using-gnu-stow/ https://tamerlan.dev/how-i-manage-my-dotfiles-using-gnu-stow... Stow is usually trivially installable using the package manager while I'm installing git. Not nearly as full featured as chezmoi but gets the job done for me.
- linhns 1y ago
  Thanks for the post, it's from your post that I adapt and find a way for my own use.
- mgsloan2 1y ago
  My homedir is just a git repo, similar to https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles. The .git folder has a different name so that git commands aren't accidentally applied to it. What I love most about this is keeping my homedir clean - I can see what files are new (untracked) and either delete them or add to .gitignore
l00sed 1y ago
I've been using dotter for 5+ years and it's been an amazing tool. Doesn't go all in like NixOS, but lets you get close to that functionality by allowing templating to reuse a single dotfile repo across different systems. I also like how you can easily conditionally select configurations and scripts to load depending on environment.
hk1337 1y ago
I've never really had any of the issues that is mentioned in the bullet points. I use the Atlassian post on storing dotfiles [1] for several years now. * It's easy to setup on a new machine, no creating symlinks on every setup * I create separate branches for different machines/environments. Like, currently, I have a branch for macos and my master branch is for devcontainer, but I have had a linux branch too. I copied the post to a markdown as a README in the repository in the off chance Atlassian deletes the post for some reason. Most recently, I started moving any config files I could into the .config to keep the home directory clean. i.e. .config/git .config/fish and .config/zsh 1: https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles
eviks 1y ago
Wish there were a detailed comparison to some other managers like chezmoi
robbingtherob 1y ago
Call a potential fork 'yolk'.

96 points by nateb2022 1y ago

Now that 20225 has become “The Year of the Terminal”(R), I have been looking at how managing my dot files in a more coherent way. I was thinking straight up git vs stow, but I should would be very interested in comparisons from those who have used this tool.

gaweringo 1y ago
I found it quite useful. My main use case for it is managing the same dotfiles for Windows and Linux. Specifically that neovim uses different folders and I can set that per OS in dotter. It also allows for including our not including a config based on an executable being available which can be useful. It requires some configuration, depending on how many of its features you use but I think it's worth it.
- phren0logy 1y ago
  Thanks. I’m between Omarchy and MacOS mostly, but sometimes Windows, too. Seems worth putting some time into it.
vault 1y ago
I've been using "homegit" for years and never felt the need for a replacement. https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles
- tonymet 1y ago
  great tip! also for /etc
daedalus_j 1y ago
Chezmoi is what you want. I haven't looked at this one yet, but until someone compares it to Chezmoi and points out where it's better I'm not even looking attention I fear. Chezmoi is just that good.
- mr_mitm 1y ago
  How do you manage system wide settings? I've been using ansible, but it seems a bit overkill. I feel it's over complicating things.
  - skydhash 1y ago
    Not GP. I tarball /etc. On a new system, I restore config quite carefully.
  - nickjj 1y ago
    I use my dotfiles repo for this. For example in my dotfiles repo I'll have `etc/pacman.d/01-options.conf` and the dotfiles install script will symlink that to `/etc/pacman.d/01-options.conf`. This way the source of truth is always in a single dotfiles repo. This strategy has worked well for dotfiles I use on Arch, Debian, Ubuntu and macOS. It includes support for WSL 2 too. The install script has been working with this set up for years to run 1 single command and have everything work where work in this case is installing and configuring a bunch of tools I use. An example is here https://github.com/nickjj/dotfiles https://github.com/nickjj/dotfiles.
  - theshrike79 1y ago
    I have a multi-tier system. Chezmoi manages stuff that's in my /home - configurations, scripts in ~/bin/ etc. It also installs a bunch of applications with a runonce_ -script both on Linux and MacOS. Ansible makes sure the correct system-level packages are installed, things in /etc/ are set up the way I like etc. There's a bunch of overlap with the packages installed by ansible and Chezmoi - but I run `chezmoi update` multiple times a week an I can run it on any computer I'm on. Ansible is for Big Things. Then I have an opentofu setup that manages a bunch of docker containers, keeping them as stateful as possible. For daily simple things, I can just edit any config file, add it to chezmoi and push it to git. Then on any machine I can `chezmoi update` and everything is synced.
- announcer4614 1y ago
  For the sake of answering the parent question with regard to Chezmoi specifically: Chezmoi is a very comprehensive dotfiles manager. It can do a lot of things. More than any other I'm aware of. More does not necessarily equal better, though. I think that's a matter of personal preference. I tried Chezmoi for a while and ultimately decided it was just a lot more levers at my disposal than I really wanted to even think about. Dotter, by contrast, is a lot more minimal. Dotter is little more than a symlink manager plus templating engine plus config files to declare what machines need what config. Chezmoi is all that, and does a lot more: encryption/decryption (even has password manager integrations), automatic push/pull. It's also designed so that you can add or manage files regardless of what your current working directory is (via commands like `chezmoi edit/add`). In my case, after deciding I wanted to go for the minimal end of things, I almost went for GNU Stow however, I wanted templating functionality and I liked dotter's "packages" system for defining what files a given computer needs. And very much a personal bias here: I found the learning curve of Chezmoi templates not great. I'm also not a big fan of the fact that Chezmoi relies on you naming your source files in particular ways in order to determine what the target file permissions should be.
bbkane 1y ago
If all you want is GNU Stow with a bit nicer UX, I wrote and have been using https://github.com/bbkane/fling https://github.com/bbkane/fling for a few years now. See the demo gif in the README for the UX
integrii 1y ago
I made a post recently on HN about this. All you need is git. It does everything. I didn't know why people want symlinks and everything else. https://ericgreer.info/post/2025-08-31-simple-dotfiles-script/ https://ericgreer.info/post/2025-08-31-simple-dotfiles-scrip...
- kirici 1y ago
  I was using "just git" until I realized I've started writing a whole bunch of scripts of various types to recreate ("ad-hoc, informally specified and bug-ridden...") functionality that chezmoi offers out of the box and has already tested in the field.

defraudbah 1y ago

I wish it had more examples or some basic documentation website, it looks interesting cuz i have a lot of context switching through all my tools.

jzelinskie 1y ago

I've seen projects like this for years and I still have the genuinely honest question: what are people doing that managing their dotfiles is significant problem for them? I've managed my dotfiles (12 different configuration files all compatible with cygwin, wsl, linux, macOS) for the past decade in a git repo with a 50 LOC shell script that creates symlinks for me in an intelligent way. What am I missing?

loloquwowndueo 1y ago
I use chezmoi, and I didn’t have to write a 50-line script - just install chezmoi on a new machine, run a command pointing it to a git repo, and up pop all the dot files and configs I need to have a consistent environment everywhere. Chezmoi also handles variations in config files for personal vs. Work machines, or even differences between machines themselves. I agree it’s not a tremendous lift to write a bespoke solution for this (and I did so in the past) but at some point it becomes lower-effort to use something off the shelf.
- msdz 1y ago
  In addition to that, chezmoi templating can be used to fill in environment variables like secret keys, you just need to unlock rbw or whatever other password manager it is that you use. I have some that I export in my shell config, and this setup allows me to have the repo in a public place and not worry about who finds it.
TheDong 1y ago
I use home-manager for my dotfiles, and they manage quite a few things. For example: 1. My editor config (neovim) including downloading and installing all my plugins, including the dependencies of the plugins (including deno, rust-analyzer, clippy, etc) 2. All the other tools I use, like ripgrep, python, and so on, including installing the same version on every machine I've got. 3. A bunch of misc programs and scripts I've written for myself, including all their dependencies 4. All the xdg configuration to open http links in the right browser profile, pdfs in evince, etc, as well as all the programs needed for that 5. systemd user units to run various daemons, like syncthing to sync some documents between computers, gpg-agent, etc etc. And this works on all machines running any linux distro, from arch linux to nixos to ubuntu. home-manager is just another dotfile manager, but since nix makes packages isolated, such that my user version of $pkg doesn't conflict or depend on the host version, home-manaer can also safely manage applications I run, like my editor, browser, developer tools, systemd units, etc etc etc. I agree that most dotfile managers are weird overengineered projects that could have been a short shell script. I think nix+home-manager is a weird overengineered project that could not have been a shell script.

tracker1 1y ago

I have a backup/restore set of scripts that copies my dot files over as well as a few directories as a whole via rsync. My only big issue is how big ~/.config/ gets as a directory compared to how much I really want to keep/need in terms of a fresh setup. Similar for my ~/src/ directory, with all the ./.git/ files. I kind of wish there were a "smarter" backup/restore tool that could handle a few of these things better than ham-fisting and rsyncing all the things.. I was more selective in my restore when configuring my new computer earlier in the year.

skydhash 1y ago
Try Stow. You can create packages for your stuff and symlink the files as needed. I have packages like git, shell, mail,…
- tonymet 1y ago
  stow is great and I used it for many years. it's very "unix-y" in that it favors FS entries over complicated DBs / config.

pentracchiano 1y ago

Why is "written in Rust" as important as what the software is about? I noticed this tendency of specifying when something is written in Rust. Should it be an indicator of better stability? Or performance? And if so, am I interested in the performance of a dotfile tool? Genuinely curious.

tonymet 1y ago
[flagged]
turtlebits 1y ago
Easy to deploy, usually single static binaries. Same goes with Golang projects. Polar opposite of java (which I'll totally ignore).
- serbuvlad 1y ago
  Very funny to me that Java's initial appeal: it's easy to deploy "everywhere"; is now it's disadvantage (you need a whole Java setup with JAVA_HOME and God knows what else). Now the bar for GUI apps is cross-compilation to deployable web, Windows, Linux (Electron), Android, iOS (? I don't know I don't use/develop for Apple products) versions from running a simple command. And for the CLI world, well, almost everyone is on Linux x86-64, or maybe arm, so a few static binaries (or "virtually" static -- depending only on glibc) are king for deployment.
  - nirvdrum 1y ago
    I don’t find installing a JVM a massive amount of work (no more so than any other interpreted language), but nowadays you can AOT compile Java to a native binary if that’s your hang-up: https://www.graalvm.org/jdk24/reference-manual/native-image/ https://www.graalvm.org/jdk24/reference-manual/native-image/ There’s a new LTS release with improvements coming out next week.
    - turtlebits 1y ago

tonymet 1y ago

git bare repo handles dotfiles better than any bespoke platform 1. git is already there and familiar 2. sync dotfiles over ssh . no internet access or separate credentials needed (for github, s3 etc) 3. handles merge conflicts 4. easily push & pull subdirectories into /etc , /usr/local or wherever else you need configuration using git subtree. git bare repo works for tracking files anywhere on the FS as well. (check debian etckeeper for automating that) credit: https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles

eviks 1y ago
How does your bare repo handle a config file in different paths on Windows and MacOS where you want to ignore "last_update_time" field diff noise and also have OS-specific path references?
- jitl 1y ago
  using windows is out of scope for my lifestyle
- hk1337 1y ago
  Different branches for each OS.
  - eviks 1y ago
    How does this help > ignore "last_update_time" field diff Also, OS-specific is in the env var (can also be machine specific, so now you have OS*machine number of branches?)
  - jitl 1y ago
    sounds annoying af
- tonymet 1y ago
  branches and symlinks . Don't throw out the 99% solution because it's missing 1%

threemux 1y ago

I just use a git repo and GNU Stow similar to the approach in this post (I'm not the author of the post): https://tamerlan.dev/how-i-manage-my-dotfiles-using-gnu-stow/ https://tamerlan.dev/how-i-manage-my-dotfiles-using-gnu-stow... Stow is usually trivially installable using the package manager while I'm installing git. Not nearly as full featured as chezmoi but gets the job done for me.

linhns 1y ago
Thanks for the post, it's from your post that I adapt and find a way for my own use.
mgsloan2 1y ago
My homedir is just a git repo, similar to https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles. The .git folder has a different name so that git commands aren't accidentally applied to it. What I love most about this is keeping my homedir clean - I can see what files are new (untracked) and either delete them or add to .gitignore

l00sed 1y ago

I've been using dotter for 5+ years and it's been an amazing tool. Doesn't go all in like NixOS, but lets you get close to that functionality by allowing templating to reuse a single dotfile repo across different systems. I also like how you can easily conditionally select configurations and scripts to load depending on environment.

hk1337 1y ago

I've never really had any of the issues that is mentioned in the bullet points. I use the Atlassian post on storing dotfiles [1] for several years now. * It's easy to setup on a new machine, no creating symlinks on every setup * I create separate branches for different machines/environments. Like, currently, I have a branch for macos and my master branch is for devcontainer, but I have had a linux branch too. I copied the post to a markdown as a README in the repository in the off chance Atlassian deletes the post for some reason. Most recently, I started moving any config files I could into the .config to keep the home directory clean. i.e. .config/git .config/fish and .config/zsh 1: https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles

eviks 1y ago

Wish there were a detailed comparison to some other managers like chezmoi

robbingtherob 1y ago

Call a potential fork 'yolk'.