Chezmoi

Chezmoi is a cross-platform dotfile manager written in the Go programming language by Tom Payne, currently at version 2.70.5 with over 20,400 stars on GitHub. It manages personal configuration files, known as dotfiles, across multiple machines running different operating systems including Linux, macOS, Windows, and containers, keeping them synchronized and consistent. Unlike simple symlinking approaches or bare Git repositories, it stores dotfile contents in a single source directory under user home, then applies them to the target locations using a declarative state model that tracks what has been applied where. A standout feature is deep integration with password managers and secret stores, natively supporting 1Password, AWS Secrets Manager, Azure Key Vault, Bitwarden, Dashlane, Doppler, ejson, gopass, KeePassXC, Keeper, LastPass, pass, passhole, Proton Pass, and HashiCorp Vault for injecting secrets into template files without storing them in plaintext. Files can be encrypted with age, GnuPG, or rage for secure storage in public Git repositories. The templating engine, powered by Go text/template with Sprig functions, enables dynamic configuration that adapts per machine based on hostname, operating system, architecture, and environment variables. Operations include adding files to management, editing source state, applying changes to target machines, diffing before applying, and forgetting managed entries. The tool supports importing from other dotfile managers, running scripts before and after apply, managing file permissions, handling read-only and encrypted source states, and provides shell completions for bash, fish, PowerShell, and zsh. It is distributed as a single static binary and installable via Homebrew, Scoop, apt, dnf, Arch AUR, and Nix.