Configuration

Configuration

dots keeps its own state under ~/.dots/, and your personal, machine-local layer under ~/.personal/. Both are created by dots init (run automatically by the installer).

Locations

Path	Purpose
~/.dots/	The tool's home: the repo checkout and bin/dots.
~/.dots/settings.toml	Tool settings (see below).
~/.dots/links.toml	Your symlink declarations — see Managing Symlinks.
~/.personal/	Your personal, machine-local layer.
~/.personal/aliases.zsh	User-defined aliases, sourced after the built-in ones.
~/.personal/apps/	Space for per-app personal config.
~/.personal/config.toml	Optional overrides that win over settings.toml.

settings.toml

Settings live under a [dots] table. Edit the file directly, or manage these from the Settings screen in the TUI.

[dots]
update_check     = true    # check for updates periodically
update_frequency = 1440    # minutes between update checks
greeting         = true    # show the greeting banner
developer_mode   = false   # enable developer features
theme            = ""       # selected theme (empty = default)

Key	Type	Default	Meaning
update_check	bool	true	Enable/disable periodic update checks
update_frequency	int (minutes)	1440	How often to check (1440 = daily)
greeting	bool	true	Show the greeting banner
developer_mode	bool	false	Enable developer-oriented features
theme	string	""	Selected theme name

Unknown keys are ignored and missing keys fall back to defaults, so the file is forward- and backward-compatible across versions. A malformed file logs a warning and dots falls back to defaults rather than failing.

The ~/.personal overlay

~/.personal/config.toml uses the same schema as settings.toml. Any keys it sets override the base settings — useful for per-machine tweaks you don't want to commit to your shared config.

Aliases you add with dots aliases add are written to ~/.personal/aliases.zsh, which is meant to be sourced after dots' built-in aliases so your definitions win.