🌀 slinky

A spring-loaded symlink-based dotfile manager built in shell.

Move dotfiles to a central repo, replace originals with symlinks, and keep track of them for easy install. That's it.

Why use slinky?

• ✨ Simple: One command to add, install, drop, or uninstall dotfiles.
• 🔒 Safe: Won't overwrite existing files without confirmation.
• 📜 Git-friendly: Just a folder and a map file - works with any VCS.
• 🗂️ Flexible: Organize files however you want - by host, OS, or category.
• 🔧 No config: Just works with your dotfiles repo.
• 🐚 Portable: Single POSIX shell script with zero dependencies.

Install

Slinky supports any system that ships with a POSIX-compliant shell.

Package manager

brew install boldandbrad/tap/slinky

If this project gains traction I may add slinky to other package managers in the future.

Manual

Add slinky as a submodule.

git submodule add https://github.com/boldandbrad/slinky

Or simply download the script and add it to your path. You can even store it directly in your dotfiles repository!

How it works

Slinky moves your dotfiles into a central repository, places symlinks in their original locations, and remembers what is has done. You can think of it as a light wrapper around mv and ln that can do tricks.

~/.vimrc                                # Before: regular file
~/.vimrc → ~/dotfiles/vimrc             # After: symlink

By default, slinky assumes your dotfiles repository is located at $HOME/dotfiles, but you can change this behavior by setting the $DOTFILES environment variable.

Slinky maintains a plaintext map file (slinky.map) in the root of the dotfiles repository to keep track of the files and directories it manages. Example:

vimrc|~/.vimrc
config/nvim|~/.config/nvim
emacs|~/.emacs

Combined, these patterns let you backup your dotfiles using your preferred version control or cloud storage system for easy install on any machine.

Usage

Add

slinky add ~/.vimrc                     # add to dotfiles root
slinky add ~/.vimrc ~/.bashrc           # add multiple at once
slinky add -p editors ~/.config/nvim    # specify repo subdirectory
slinky add ~/.vimrc -p editors          # flag can appear anywhere

List

slinky list                             # list all tracked dotfiles
slinky list -p mac                      # only those under the given subdirectory

Find

slinky find                             # find existing symlinks to your dotfiles repo

Useful for auditing which dotfiles are already managed or for finding symlinks that weren't added through slinky.

Install

slinky install                          # create symlinks for all tracked dotfiles
slinky install -p mac                   # only dotfiles under the given subdirectory

Drop

slinky drop config/nvim                 # move back to original location
slinky drop config/nvim .vimrc          # drop multiple at once

Uninstall

slinky uninstall                        # remove all managed symlinks

Example repos

Check out slinky in the wild. Add your dotfiles github repo to the list by adding the slinky-dotfiles topic.

Inspiration

• lnk
• dotbot

License

MIT