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No symlink manager, just git

This dotfiles repo uses git directly instead of having an install procedure or symlink manager. This has quite a few benefits:

  • Simplicity - no configuration needed.

  • It helps keep my home directory tidy, as new files and folders either get added to this repo, deleted, or added to .gitignore.

  • No need to research, compare and contrast symlink management approaches

This might initially seem like a bad idea, since git searches parent folders for .git repos, and so commands might inadvertantly apply to the home dir repo. There's a pretty good solution to this, though it requires a bit of setup, described below.

I got the idea for this from this excellent post. However, my approach soon diverged some from what's recommended there, as described in the section below.

How to use this as a home directory

To clone this repo:

git clone --bare https://github.com/mgsloan/mgsloan-dotfiles.git .home.git

Alternatively, if you want to use this approach for your own, new repo:

mkdir .home.git
cd .home.git
git init --bare

After cloning or initing, in your current home directory, run the following commands. Note that these commands will not change any of your files.

export GIT_DIR="$PWD/.home.git"
export GIT_WORK_TREE=$PWD
git config core.bare false
git config core.logAllRefUpdates true
git config core.workdir ../

After these commands, git's index has not yet been updated, so it will think that everything has been deleted, even files that exist. Run this incantation to reset the index:

git reset HEAD -- .

Now, running git status should show a bunch of deleted files and possibly some modified files.

Heres how to resurrect the deleted files, adding the files from this repo that didn't exist before:

# NOTE: Before executing this, be sure to reset the index, otherwise
# it will overwrite existing files.
git status --porcelain | awk '$1 == "D" {print $2}' | xargs git checkout HEAD --

And, to initialize the submodules:

git submodule update --init --recursive

It's rather inconvenient to need to set these environment variables to interact with the git repo. The contents of .local/bin/cfg is

#!/bin/sh
git --git-dir=$HOME/.home.git/ --work-tree=$HOME $@

So, this means that you can just run commands like cfg commit to interact with the home dir git repo.

Details of the above incantations

After running export GIT_DIR="$PWD/.home.git", you will not be able to use git on other repositories within this shell. To disable this, use unset GIT_DIR.

Here's why each of the config fields are set:

  • bare must be disabled before setting workdir.

  • Enabling logAllRefUpdates means the reflog will be updated. This is set to true when cloning a repo normally, because it is potentially quite useful.

  • Setting workdir to ../ causes it to use your HOME dir. Could also set it to $HOME if you'd prefer to be able to move .home.git elsewhere.

Usage with magit

I typically use magit to update this repo. To do this, I run emacs with GIT_DIR and GIT_WORK_TREE set, via the .local/bin/edit_cfg script:

#!/bin/sh
GIT_DIR=$HOME/.home.git/ GIT_WORK_TREE=$HOME emacs $HOME/env/src/xmonad.hs $@

However, magit unsets these environment variables. It's straightforward to patch it, though:

diff --git a/lisp/magit.el b/lisp/magit.el
index 5bd9146f..e7c805a2 100644
--- a/lisp/magit.el
+++ b/lisp/magit.el
@@ -541,14 +541,14 @@ See info node `(magit)Debugging Tools' for more information."
 ;;; Startup Asserts

 (defun magit-startup-asserts ()
-  (when-let ((val (getenv "GIT_DIR")))
-    (setenv "GIT_DIR")
-    (message "Magit unset $GIT_DIR (was %S).  See \
-https://github.com/magit/magit/wiki/Don't-set-$GIT_DIR-and-alike" val))
-  (when-let ((val (getenv "GIT_WORK_TREE")))
-    (setenv "GIT_WORK_TREE")
-    (message "Magit unset $GIT_WORK_TREE (was %S).  See \
-https://github.com/magit/magit/wiki/Don't-set-$GIT_DIR-and-alike" val))
+;;   (when-let ((val (getenv "GIT_DIR")))
+;;     (setenv "GIT_DIR")
+;;     (message "Magit unset $GIT_DIR (was %S).  See \
+;; https://github.com/magit/magit/wiki/Don't-set-$GIT_DIR-and-alike" val))
+;;   (when-let ((val (getenv "GIT_WORK_TREE")))
+;;     (setenv "GIT_WORK_TREE")
+;;     (message "Magit unset $GIT_WORK_TREE (was %S).  See \
+;; https://github.com/magit/magit/wiki/Don't-set-$GIT_DIR-and-alike" val))
   (let ((version (magit-git-version)))
     (when (and version
                (version< version magit--minimal-git)

Idea: Hooks for more safety

So far, using a .gitignore and careful commits has been sufficient to avoid putting anything unwanted into the repository. I also planned to add some git hooks for extra safety, but haven't yet gotten around to it. A few things these hooks might do:

  • It might be nice to have a commit hook which prevents committing any directories that you definitely don't want to commit. .gitignore nearly achieves this, but it can be side-stepped via git add --force. A commit hook could add a further layer of safety.

  • It would be good to avoid absolute paths to my home directory, or absolute github urls. So, it might make sense to ban uses of my username, mgsloan, other than for some paths on an allowlist.

It'd also make sense to version these hooks. Using the env/git-hooks dir for this can be done via:

git config core.hooksPath ./env/git-hooks