Org to Dotfiles

Back in 2016, I wrote about Haoyang Xu’s idea of keeping all your dotfiles in a single Org-mode file that tangles the individual dotfiles to their proper place in your directory structure. This allows you to write the dotfiles in a literate way and have a single, version controlled source for them. Sadly, Xu’s post has disappeared so his examples are no longer available.

Happily, Toon Claes has rediscovered the idea and posted a description of his process. He also has a GitLab repository with the dotfiles he’s implemented in this way. Claes has a separate Org file for each dotfile but there’s no reason they couldn’t be combined into a single file. If you follow the link at the bottom of each Org file to the source and then click on the Display source button, you can see the raw Org that he used.

I really like this idea although it’s probably not worth the effort if you have a single machine. If, like me, you have two or more machines running the same OS, it can be a real win. If you like keeping your configuration files under version control and want a way of recording why you made the choices you did for your dotfiles, this can be a useful technique. It’s just another example of how Org is assimilating everything.

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