📚 Introducing kickstart.dotfiles: A Starting Point for Your .dotfiles Configuration Management

Hello everyone,

I am excited to introduce my new project, kickstart.dotfiles, a Python-based tool designed to streamline the management of your dotfiles. You can fork or clone the repository, put your dotfiles there, and write linking configurations in a JSON format. After running the tool, your dotfiles are linked based on the provided configuration.

Key Features:

• Clone Git Repositories: Easily clone specified Git repositories to desired directories, e.g. a separate nvim config.
• Symlink Creation: Automatically create symlinks for static files and folders.
• Template Management: Generate and link files from templates, supporting environment variable substitution, including base64-encoded values for multiline variables.
• Template Difference Checking: Compare generated files with template files to identify differences.
• Backup Existing Files: Backup existing files before overwriting them to ensure no data is lost.
• Dry-Run Mode: Preview the actions without making any changes to ensure everything is correct.

Why Another Dotfiles Manager

I needed a simple script to link my dotfiles from a git repo to the $HOME directory. I do not really like the idea of storing anything encrypted in the repo itself, as all my secrets are stored separately. Plus, I wanted something simple, without any dependencies - you just need environment variables with your secrets and the kickstart.dotfiles repository to set up everything.

Example

The repository provides a comprehensive example. See the bash script for some additional details:

bash git clone https://github.com/Foat/kickstart.dotfiles.git cd kickstart.dotfiles ./example/run.sh --config ./example/[email protected]

Running the script: bash python kdf.py --config path/to/config.json [--dry-run] [--check-templates]

Feel free to ask any questions, provide feedback, or contribute to the project.