dotfiles

Personal dotfiles managed with chezmoi, with bootstrap scripts for Linux and Windows.

TL;DR

# 1) Install/apply dotfiles directly
chezmoi init --apply ghaith/dotfiles

# or bootstrap from curl
bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ghaith/dotfiles/main/install.sh)"

# 2) Open a new shell and verify node/pi
node -v && pi --help

This repo installs and configures:

• shell: zsh, shared shell config for bash + zsh
• editor/tools: neovim, helix, ripgrep, fd, fzf, bat, eza, zoxide, starship, atuin, git-delta
• language/runtime: go, rust, fnm + Node LTS
• pi agent: @mariozechner/pi-coding-agent
• fonts/themes helpers: Nerd Fonts, tmux catppuccin plugin

---

Repository layout

• install.sh – Linux bootstrap (packages + fnm/node + pi + chezmoi init/apply)
• .chezmoiscripts/run_once_before_00-bootstrap.sh – runs bootstrap when initialized through chezmoi
• run_after_install-pi-extensions.sh – installs npm deps for pi extensions
• run_after_install-tmux-catppuccin.sh – installs tmux catppuccin plugin
• create_private_dot_gitconfig.local.tmpl – seeds ~/.gitconfig.local once, then never touches it
• dot_*, private_dot_*, dot_config/ – managed dotfiles/templates

---

Quick start (Linux)

Option A (recommended): initialize directly with chezmoi

chezmoi init --apply ghaith/dotfiles

What happens:

1. chezmoi clones/applies dotfiles
2. .chezmoiscripts/run_once_before_00-bootstrap.sh calls install.sh --from-chezmoi
3. packages and runtimes are installed
4. shell/npm/fnm/pi setup is configured

Option B: bootstrap via curl

bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ghaith/dotfiles/main/install.sh)"

If the local dotfiles source directory does not exist, install.sh automatically falls back to:

• https://github.com/ghaith/dotfiles.git

and runs chezmoi init --apply against that repo.

---

install.sh options

--from-chezmoi        Run bootstrap tasks without calling `chezmoi init`
--skip-chezmoi-init   Alias for --from-chezmoi
--source <path|repo>  Override chezmoi source (local path or remote repo URL)

Also supported via env var:

• CHEZMOI_SOURCE=<path|repo>

Examples:

./install.sh --source ~/src/dotfiles
./install.sh --source https://github.com/ghaith/dotfiles.git
CHEZMOI_SOURCE=~/src/dotfiles ./install.sh

---

Node/fnm behavior

fnm is initialized in shared shell config with:

• fnm env --shell zsh --use-on-cd (zsh)
• fnm env --shell bash --use-on-cd (bash)

Bootstrap installs Node LTS and sets it as default:

fnm install --lts
fnm default lts-latest

This ensures node/npm are available for pi after install.

---

Windows

Windows is a config-only target — nothing is installed and no shell config is deployed. .chezmoiignore narrows it to an allowlist:

Target	Notes
.config/nvim	needs XDG_CONFIG_HOME, see below
.config/wezterm	terminal of choice on Windows
.config/starship	needs STARSHIP_CONFIG pointing at it
.gitconfig

Environment variables

Windows needs two user-scope variables (no admin required; restart the shell after setting them):

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("XDG_CONFIG_HOME", "$env:USERPROFILE\.config", "User")
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL", "$env:USERPROFILE\.gitconfig", "User")

• XDG_CONFIG_HOME — Neovim on Windows reads %LOCALAPPDATA%\nvim unless this is set. Also fixes starship, bat, and anything else XDG-aware.
• GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL — on a domain-joined machine HOMEDRIVE is a network share, so git resolves ~ to it and ignores the config chezmoi writes under %USERPROFILE%. This repoints git's global config without moving HOME (which would orphan SSH keys and anything else on the share). The corporate config is pulled back in as a low-precedence [include], so local settings win and git keeps working when the share is offline.

destDir is pinned to %USERPROFILE% in .chezmoi.toml.tmpl. Without it, running chezmoi from Git Bash targets the network share (Git Bash derives HOME from HOMEDRIVE) while PowerShell targets C:\Users\<user> — two different destinations sharing one state database.

Install the tools you want by hand — user-local installs are fine and no package manager is assumed — then:

chezmoi init --apply

.chezmoiscripts/ is skipped entirely on Windows. The scripts are POSIX shell, and Windows has no shebang support, so chezmoi's fork/exec of the extracted .sh fails with %1 is not a valid Win32 application and aborts the whole apply.

---

Updating dotfiles

From an existing machine:

chezmoi update
chezmoi apply

Preview changes first:

chezmoi diff

Tooling updates

Arch / CachyOS packages

sudo pacman -Syu

NixOS system packages

cd ~/dotfiles/nixos
nix flake update
sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#$(hostname)

Portable nix profile packages

nix profile upgrade --all

More NixOS notes live in nixos/README.md.

---

Writing / spell / grammar tools

Default install now includes:

• shellcheck — shell linting
• typos + typos-lsp — typo checking for code and prose
• harper — lightweight English grammar/style checks
• vim-spell-en — Neovim English spell files

Optional Arch packages for extra Neovim spell languages:

sudo pacman -S vim-spell-de vim-spell-fr vim-spell-nl vim-spell-es

Troubleshooting

• Check node availability:
  • fnm current
  • node -v
  • npm -v
• Re-open shell after first install (exec zsh or new terminal)
• If chezmoi source is wrong, pass explicit source:
  • ./install.sh --source https://github.com/ghaith/dotfiles.git