My .dotfiles repository

This is how I backup my computer’s configuration files, known informally as “dotfiles”, using GitHub. I am using a bare git repository named .dotfiles with the git worktree set to my home directory. This makes it trivial to set up a new computer with my own backed-up configuration files.

How to set up a new computer to use these dotfiles

Clone the .dotfiles repository and install the dotfiles using the proper directories as shown, overwriting files if they exist.

  git clone --bare https://github.com/edflinchum/.dotfiles.git $HOME/.dotfiles

  git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles --work-tree=$HOME checkout -f

Set an alias to configure git to use the bare repository when typing dot. This step can be skipped if you have restarted your shell after installing the dotfiles in the previous step.
NOTE: The dot alias shown here is no longer needed with the git wrapper function included in this repository. You can replace dot in the following steps with git if you have restarted the shell with the dotfiles in place.
```
  alias dot='git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ --work-tree=$HOME'
```
I only want git to track files that I explicitly add to the repository.
```
  dot config --local status.showUntrackedFiles no
```

[Optional] This is how to set the git user identity to be used with the .dotfiles repository.

  dot config --local user.name "John Doe"

  dot config --local user.email johndoe@example.com

[Optional] This will configure git to use ssh instead of https with this repository.
```
  dot remote set-url origin git@github.com:edflinchum/.dotfiles.git
```

How to set up your own .dotfiles bare repository from scratch

Initialize the bare git repository and set your remote target for backups.

  git init --bare $HOME/.dotfiles
  alias dot='git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ --work-tree=$HOME'
  dot remote add origin git@github.com:[YOUR_GITHUB_NAME]/.dotfiles.git

Example usage to backup local configuration files to your .dotfiles repository.

  dot status
  dot add .filename
  dot commit -m 'Add .filename'
  dot push