Dotfiles

This repository stores dotfiles using jj-vcs (Jujutsu) as the version control tool. The working tree is the home directory (~) itself, so no symlinks are needed.

Prerequisites

• Install git.
• Install jj.

Importing the dotfiles

Create ~/.gitignore before initializing so jj doesn't try to snapshot the entire home directory:

echo '*' > ~/.gitignore

Initialize a bare jj repo (git backend in ~/.dotfiles, workspace in ~). The --config flag prevents it from trying to snapshot all of ~ during init:

git init --bare "$HOME/.dotfiles"
jj git init --git-repo="$HOME/.dotfiles" "$HOME" --config snapshot.auto-track='none()'
jj config set --repo snapshot.auto-track 'none()'

Add the remote, fetch, and check out main:

jj git remote add origin [email protected]:datwaft/dotfiles.git
jj git fetch
jj bookmark track main --remote origin
jj new main
jj restore .

Usage

This setup means you can use jj anywhere in your home directory and it will work.

If you are inside another repository jj will use that repository instead, which is the expected behaviour as we don't want to accidentally add files inside another repository to this repository.

As we are ignoring all files by default, we need to explicitly track files using jj file track --include-ignored. This repository has an abbreviation for adding --include-ignored automatically.

How it works

• jj uses a bare git repo in ~/.dotfiles so any tool that is not configured to work with jj will not detect a git repository in the home directory. This prevents performance implications.
• You need to use jj file track --include-ignored to track files as the files are not being tracked automatically. This is a protection measure to prevent accidentally tracking files.