chezmoi dotfiles management

To apply my dotfiles:

sh -c "$(curl -fsLS https://raw.githubusercontent.com/returntrip/dotfiles/main/cminit)"

Removing managed files

chezmoi does not delete a destination file when its source is removed — the target becomes unmanaged and stays on disk. There are three ways to remove a managed file, depending on the situation.

1. chezmoi destroy — best while the source still exists

Removes the source entry, the destination file, and the state in one step. Run from the destination directory (e.g. cd ~), while the file is still managed:

chezmoi destroy .local/bin/toolbox-base-runner

2. remove_ source prefix — atomic commit

Replace a managed source entry with a remove_-prefixed marker in the same directory, e.g. rename executable_toolbox-base-runner to remove_toolbox-base-runner. chezmoi removes the target on the next apply. The marker file is source-only and never installed.

3. .chezmoiremove — retroactive, for already-deleted sources

If the source was already removed and pushed, the target is now unmanaged and would never be cleaned up by chezmoi apply. List the target path in .chezmoiremove in the source state — chezmoi deletes matching targets on the next chezmoi apply on every machine. It is template-parsed and source-only (never installed). Preview with chezmoi apply --dry-run --verbose.

Once every machine has pulled and applied, .chezmoiremove can be deleted — it is only needed while stale copies still exist.