Taming Your Terminal: Dotfiles & GNU Stow

Jackson Hoffart

What are dotfiles?

• Configuration files that live in your $HOME directory
• Usually start with a dot (so they’re “hidden”):
  • .bashrc, .zshrc
  • .gitconfig
  • .config/ghostty/config
• They control how your tools behave:
  • shell prompt, aliases, colors
  • git defaults, editor settings, etc.

Why care about dotfiles?

• New machine? → “Why doesn’t anything feel right?”
• Dotfiles in a repo give you:
  • reproducible setups
  • easy sharing of configuration (new laptop, new team member)
  • a place to grow your personal setup over time

Dotfiles as a developer’s fingerprint

• Everyone’s environment is a bit different:
  • preferred shell, editor, prompt, tools
• Your dotfiles encode:
  • how you navigate
  • how you debug
  • how you use git, ssh, etc.
• Putting them in a repo:
  • documents how you work
  • lets you borrow good ideas from others 😄

The problem: dotfiles sprawl

• Config files live all over $HOME:
  • ~/.bashrc
  • ~/.gitconfig
  • ~/.config/ghostty/config
• If you edit them in-place:
  • hard to sync between machines
  • easy to accidentally diverge
• We’d like a single source of truth in a repo, and a clean way to “deploy” them into $HOME.

GNU Stow

GNU Stow is a symlink manager.

• You keep “real” files in a repo like:

~/dotfiles/
  bash/.bashrc
  bash/.aliases
  git/.gitconfig
  ghostty/.config/ghostty/config

• Then you “stow” them into $HOME:

cd ~/dotfiles
stow -t "$HOME" bash git ghostty

• stow creates symlinks:

~/.bashrc  -> ~/dotfiles/bash/.bashrc
~/.gitconfig -> ~/dotfiles/git/.gitconfig

Why Stow is nice for dotfiles

• Keeps $HOME clean → just symlinks
• Easy to enable/disable groups:

stow -t "$HOME" bash
stow -D -t "$HOME" bash   # unstow

• Encourages a modular layout:
  • one folder per “package” (bash, git, ghostty, …)
• Works great with git:
  • version control your dotfiles repo
  • clone + stow on any machine