This project helps organize and version dotfiles. You can keep your dotfile in a repository somewhere, then symlink them into your HOME directory. This allows you to keep your dotfiles versioned and have them available on any computer you use.

In the event that you use multiple computers and would like dotfiles to be shared, you can specify a 'base' dotfiles directory and have host specific dotfiles override them.

Install it via pypi:

pip install homekeeper

My dotfiles repository is located here if you'd like to take a look.

Homekeeper will read a $HOME/.homekeeper.json file for configuration, or create one if it doesn't already exist. The default configuration looks like this:

{
    "base_directory": "/home/$USER/dotfiles/base",
    "dotfiles_directory": "/home/$USER/dotfiles/$HOST",
    "excludes": [
        ".git",
        ".gitignore",
    ]
}

Homekeeper will not symlink any file in the excludes array in the configuration.

Homekeeper will symlink files in the base directory first, then override those symlinks with files in your normal dotfiles directory. This can be useful if you have different configurations for different machines.

You may have homekeeper generate this file by running homekeeper init in the directory where you store your dotfiles.

Once homekeeper knows where your dotfiles live, it will remove the dotfile in your home directory, and symlink it from your dotfiles directory. For example, if you have a .bash_profile in ~/dotfiles, then your home directory will contain:

.bash_profile -> /home/$USER/dotfiles/.bash_profile

NOTE: HOMEKEEPER WILL REMOVE THE ORIGINAL FILE ONCE YOU TELL IT TO SYMLINK.

Make sure you back it up or are having homekeeper track the file you want to symlink first.

Any paths listed in the excludes directive in homekeeper.json will be ignored by homekeeper when linking.