chezmoi

Even though most advanced users know of their existence, dotfiles are not generally on the minds of basic, day-to-day users. In short, dotfiles are plain text files used for configurations, generally on Unix-based systems.

They are called this way because their names generally lead with the "." symbol, and they're also generally the hidden files of systems, which can make managing them and getting across multiple computers a bit challenging.

chezmoi is a straightforward command-line-based software designed to help users manage their personal configuration files across multiple machines.

This small utility should come in handy for users who spend time customizing the tools they use such as shells, editors, and even version control systems. With its help, users can ensure that the dotfiles in question run on different accounts and even different OSes if need be.

One of the best things about the app is that it allows anyone to control machine-specific details across multiple machines. It's worth noting that the utility is cross-platform, meaning that it works on all major OSes out there such as Windows, Linux, and macOS (as well as some other less-used OSes such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Termux).

Another great aspect is the fact that users are allowed to use whichever version control system they desire to manage the configurations in question. It's also quite fast, as it allows users to make do with operations such as line commands, installations, initializations in mere seconds (it automatically updates all files and links).

At the end of the day, chezmoi was built to make managing dotfiles a lot more efficient. Users willing to take the time to get to learn the tool can discover that it's a lot faster and smoother than managing dotfiles using custom shell scrips, and even dotfile managers.

More information about the tool, as well as a very informative quick start guide, as well as a how-to guide, are available on the project's official website.