CHEZMOI

Chezmoi Workflow

How agentic-workstation uses chezmoi for idempotent machine configuration.

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What is chezmoi?

chezmoi manages your dotfiles across multiple machines. This repository uses it as the deployment engine: the home/ directory is the source state that chezmoi applies to your home directory.

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Key concepts

Concept	Meaning
Source state	home/ in this repo — templates and files managed by chezmoi
Target state	Your actual ~ home directory
.chezmoiroot	Points chezmoi at home/ instead of the repo root
.chezmoidata/	YAML data files (profiles, packages, skills) consumed by templates
.chezmoiscripts/	Scripts that run during chezmoi apply (installers, post-apply hooks)
dot_ prefix	chezmoi convention — dot_config/ becomes ~/.config/

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Lifecycle

Initialize

cd /path/to/agentic-workstation
chezmoi init --source=. -c ~/.config/chezmoi/agentic-workstation.toml

This reads .chezmoidata/ and prompts for profile choices.

Preview

chezmoi apply --source=. -c ~/.config/chezmoi/agentic-workstation.toml --dry-run

Shows what would change without making modifications.

Apply

chezmoi apply --source=. -c ~/.config/chezmoi/agentic-workstation.toml

Creates/updates all files and runs installation scripts.

Update

dots-update-check    # check if local is behind origin
chezmoi update      # git pull + apply in one command
dots-doctor          # verify compliance

Diff

chezmoi diff        # compare source state vs target

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Profile-driven behavior

During chezmoi init, you choose profiles that control which packages and tools are installed. See Profiles for the full mapping.

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Adding new managed files

1. Create the file under home/ using chezmoi naming conventions
2. Use .tmpl extension if the file needs template logic
3. Reference chezmoi data from .chezmoidata/ as needed
4. Test with chezmoi apply --source=. -c ~/.config/chezmoi/agentic-workstation.toml --dry-run

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Technical context: docs/README.md