Managing Your Dotfiles

A guide to organizing and managing Unix dotfiles as a long-term project. Covers why you should build your own dotfiles rather than forking others', version control strategies using Git, symlinking vs copying files, idempotent install scripts, managing plugins via git submodules, and handling per-machine local customizations. Introduces Dotbot as a lightweight, dependency-free dotfiles installer. Includes practical tips for tracking custom scripts, config files in non-home directories, and enabling local overrides for shell, Git, Vim, and tmux.