cfgcaddy

Config Caddy

Config Caddy is a tool used for managing your configuration files.

One way to version your configuration files is to keep them in a git repository. This has several drawbacks, among them, git requires the files it manages to be located within a single file tree. You can overcome this limitation by using symbolic links. The links point from locations in your filesystem such as /etc/someconfig.confto files within the git repository like $HOME/tstapler/dotfiles/someconfig.conf.

Config Caddy creates symlinks to your dotfiles directory, so you don't have to. Each time you add a new file to your dotfiles repo, run cfgcaddy link to generate symlinks. By default cfgcaddy will create links from files in the dotfiles repo to their relative location in your home directory. cfgcaddy will also read from a configuration file. This allows the user to ignore certain files and create more complex linking relationships.

Usage

1. Install using pip

pip install cfgcaddy

1. Generate or import a configuration file for cfgcaddy

cfgcaddy init --help

Usage: cfgcaddy init [OPTIONS] SRC_DIRECTORY DEST_DIRECTORY

  Create or import a caddy config

Options:
  -c, --config PATH  The path to your cfgcaddy.yml
  --help             Show this message and exit.

cfgcaddy init $HOME/dotfiles $HOME

1. Run the linker

cfgcaddy link

Configuration File Format

cfgcaddy uses a configuration file to store important information about your configuration. The .cfgcaddy.yml consists of several parts. A preferences section which contains information like where your dotfiles are located and where you want them linked to, A links section where you can specify more complex symlinks, and an ignore section where you specify files you do not want managed by cfgcaddy.

Config files for cfgcaddy are stored in your home directory by default. $HOME/.cfgcaddy.yml

A sample .cfgcaddy.yml which leverages most features can be found here

Development

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/tstapler/cfgcaddy

1. Install cfgcaddy as an editable package

pip install --editable ./cfgcaddy

1. ??????

2. Profit

Motivation/Prior Art

I'm an automation fiend, this tool grew out of a personal need to manage my configurations across multiple machines and operating systems. It fits my needs and I'll add features as I need them (Like Windows support). PRs are always welcome :)

Here are several projects that I've drawn inspiration from:

• https://github.com/charlesthomas/linker
• https://github.com/thoughtbot/rcm