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content/garden/chezmoi.md

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+---
+title: "I like Chezmoi"
+date: 2025-01-31T09:08:10+01:00
+---
+
+After stubbornly (lazily) refusing to fix my Neovim config on my "desktop"
+(a.k.a an older laptop with a GPU), I finally caved in and planned to fix it.
+My dotfiles were (still are) a mess as well, so I figured I'd look for a
+dotfiles manager to tidy things up.
+
+Originally I used a Git bare repo, but that's a lot of manual labour and it was
+in complete disarray, so I decided to start an entirely [new
+one](https://git.rustybever.be/Chewing_Bever/dotfiles2). A friend of mine
+coincidentally just talked to me about [Chezmoi](https://www.chezmoi.io/), so I
+decided to give it a go.
+
+Its installation was as easy as can be, with it being in the official
+repositories on Arch, and getting started with it is pretty simple. `chezmoi
+init` initializes a local repository where Chezmoi stores all your dotfiles.
+
+Chezmoi is basically a wrapper around Git that tracks some extra metadata where
+required. `chezmoi add` adds files to the staged files, and `chezmoi git` is
+used to actuallly commit and push dotfiles to the repository. At first I was a
+little confused as to how I was supposed to actually commit files, but after
+having discovered the Git wrapper, I was honestly quite happy with it.
+Offloading all Git-related commands to the actual Git tool is much less error
+prone and allows you to still organize your commits the way you want. Chezmoi
+does however support automatic commits and pushes; I might look into that some
+day.
+
+Setting up your dotfiles on another machine is straightforward. Running
+`chezmoi init [your repo]` on the machine clones your dotfiles, and `chezmoi
+apply` will apply the changes to the machine, simple as that.
+
+There's a lot more features such as secret management and templates, but I
+haven't had a need for those (yet). Either way, I think Chezmoi is a nice tool
+that will hopefully help me keep my dotfile madness in check.