You can clone the repository wherever you want. The bootstrap script will clone the latest version to ~/.dotfiles and symlink the dotfiles into place.

git clone https://github.com/cameronhunter/dotfiles.git && cd dotfiles && ./bootstrap.sh

To update, cd into your local dotfiles repository and then:

./bootstrap.sh

If ~/.path exists, it will be sourced along with the other files, before any feature testing (such as detecting which version of ls is being used) takes place.

Here’s an example ~/.path file that adds ~/utils to the $PATH:

export PATH="$HOME/utils:$PATH"

If ~/.extra exists, it will be sourced along with the other files. You can use this to add a few custom commands without the need to fork this entire repository, or to add commands you don’t want to commit to a public repository.

My ~/.extra looks something like this:

# Git credentials
# Not in the repository, to prevent people from accidentally committing under my name
GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="Cameron Hunter"
GIT_COMMITTER_NAME="$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME"
git config --global user.name "$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME"
GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="hello@cameronhunter.co.uk"
GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL="$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"
git config --global user.email "$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"

You could also use ~/.extra to override settings, functions and aliases from my dotfiles repository. It’s probably better to fork this repository instead, though.

Suggestions/improvements welcome!

• Mathias Bynens for sharing his great dotfiles.