Managing dotfiles with work-trees.

backup_dotfiles.md

Idea: make $HOME the git work-tree, with a bare repo in a dummy folder (.dotfiles). The git commands use .dotfiles as the git directory, and $HOME as the work directory.

Setup

1. create "bare" repository

• don't contain working tree aka copy of source files
• store git revision history in root folder of repo instead of .git subfolder

mkdir $HOME/.dotfiles 
git init --bare $HOME/.dotfiles

2. setup alias to run git commands in this repo (in .zshrc)

alias dotfiles='/usr/bin/git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ --work-tree=$HOME'

3. add remote

dotfiles config --local status.showUntrackedFiles no 
dotfiles remote add origin [email protected]:amitiuttarwar/amus_dotfiles.git

Ongoing

• use dotfiles instead of git command whenever working with this repo.
• can arbitrarily add files to push.

source