dotfiles

Personal dotfiles for Linux workstations, macOS, and HEP remote clusters — managed from a single repository.

Platforms

Platform	Detection	Description
linux	default on Linux	Local machines, devcontainers, VPS nodes
mac	uname == Darwin	macOS — managed via Homebrew and stow
hep	AFS/CVMFS mounts or hostname patterns	CERN lxplus, UC/GEOP clusters (sneezy, sleepy, goofy), GPU farm

Platform is auto-detected. Override with --platform linux|mac|hep.

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Quick Start

Linux / VPS / devcontainer

git clone https://github.com/MohamedElashri/dotfiles ~/projects/dotfiles
cd ~/projects/dotfiles
./bootstrap.sh --yes

Installs base packages (curl git rsync zsh), then restores dotfiles as symlinks.

macOS

git clone https://github.com/MohamedElashri/dotfiles ~/projects/dotfiles
cd ~/projects/dotfiles
./bootstrap.sh --platform mac --yes

Dispatches to mac/setup.sh, which installs Homebrew packages and stows configs.

HEP cluster (lxplus, sneezy, sleepy, …)

git clone https://github.com/MohamedElashri/dotfiles ~/dotfiles
cd ~/dotfiles
./bootstrap.sh --platform hep --yes

Skips package installation (no root on cluster). On lxplus, where the hostname rotates (e.g. lxplus901), pass --machine lxplus to select the right aliases file:

./bootstrap.sh --platform hep --machine lxplus --yes

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Backup

Save your current $HOME dotfiles back into the repo before committing:

./backup                        # auto-detect platform
./backup --platform hep --machine lxplus
./backup --platform mac

On HEP machines, ~/.machine_aliases is saved under hep/machine_aliases/<machine>. On macOS, the backup script lives at mac/backup and is invoked automatically.

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Restore

Use restore directly when bootstrap has already run and you only want to sync files:

./restore --link                # symlink files back to this repo (default)
./restore --copy                # copy files into place
./restore --link --dry-run      # show what would happen, change nothing
./restore --platform hep --machine sneezy

Options:

Flag	Description
--link	Symlink $HOME entries to this repo. Default.
--copy	Copy files; useful when the repo is on a network share.
--platform NAME	Override auto-detected platform.
--machine NAME	HEP only: pick the hep/machine_aliases/<NAME> file.
-y, --yes	Skip all confirmation prompts.
-n, --dry-run	Print what would happen without touching anything.
--no-backup	Do not move replaced targets to a backup directory.

Replaced files are moved to ~/.dotfiles-backup/<timestamp>/ unless --no-backup is passed.

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Machine-Specific Overrides

Do not fork the repo for host-specific paths or secrets. Put local-only files here instead:

~/.config/dotfiles/zshrc.local.zsh   # loaded last by .zshrc
~/.dotfiles.local.zsh                 # fallback location

Examples of things that belong there:

• machine-specific PATH entries
• work-only aliases
• private tokens or environment variables
• host-specific cluster helpers

Templates live in templates/local/ and are not installed automatically.

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Optional Tools (Linux only)

./bootstrap.sh --optional-tools

Installs if missing: Oh My Zsh, Starship, Atuin, Rust. Each tool is skipped if already present. Individual tools can be installed by running the corresponding install_* function from bootstrap.sh.