Dotfiles

Dotfiles and shell scripts to set up my macOS and Linux machines for development. Symlinks are managed with GNU Stow.

Layout

• common/ — dotfiles shared between macOS and Linux (Stow package).
• macos/ — macOS-only dotfiles and setup (Stow package).
• linux/ — Linux-only dotfiles and setup (Stow package).
• bin/ — the setup orchestrator and shared install steps (not symlinked).
• Repo files (README.md, AGENTS.md, LICENSE, ...) live at the root and are not symlinked.

Each package mirrors $HOME. For example common/.config/fish/config.fish is linked to ~/.config/fish/config.fish.

Install

On macOS, install the Command Line Tools first:

xcode-select --install

Clone the repo and run setup:

git clone https://github.com/AlessioRocco/dotfiles ~/dotfiles
~/dotfiles/bin/setup

bin/setup installs Stow, links the common package, links and runs the setup for the current OS (macos or linux), then clones dotfiles-private into ~/dotfiles-private and runs that repo's own bin/setup. What happens to the private dotfiles is defined there, not here.

The private clone uses SSH, so the machine needs a key with access to that repo. Without it, setup warns and carries on with the public dotfiles only: add the key and re-run bin/setup to pick up the private half.

Managing symlinks

Run Stow from the repo root (.stowrc sets the target to $HOME and --no-folding):

stow common          # link shared dotfiles
stow macos           # link macOS-only dotfiles (or: stow linux)
stow -R common       # re-link after adding/removing files
stow -D common       # unlink
stow -n -v common    # dry-run (preview without changing anything)

--no-folding keeps real directories with per-file symlinks, so tools that write into their config dirs (mise, LazyVim) don't write into the repo.

The private dotfiles are their own repo with a single home package: run stow home from ~/dotfiles-private to re-link them.

Notes

• OS-specific differences are handled with stowed fragments:
  • ~/.gitconfig.os (included by ~/.gitconfig) carries the SSH signing program per platform.
  • ~/.config/fish/conf.d/os.fish carries Homebrew paths per platform.

License

Dotfiles is (c) 2019-2026 Alessio Rocco It is free software, and may be redistributed under the terms specified in the LICENSE file.