dotfiles

adapted from this guide

Store dotfiles in a bare git repo

Create a bare git repo in your home folder (or anywhere) which will store the refs for all your dotfiles:

git init --bare $HOME/.dotfiles

Create an alias for managing your dotfiles from anywhere on the system, using an absolute reference to the repo you just created:

alias dot='/usr/bin/git --git-dir=$HOME/.dotfiles/ --work-tree=$HOME'

Add this alias to your .zshrc or whatever.

Configure the repo to ignore untracked files:

dot config --local status.showUntrackedFiles no

Now you can commit dotfiles to the repo:

dot add .vimrc && dot commit -m "Add vimrc"

If you make modifications to tracked files, you can quickly commit them with:

dot add -u . && dot commit -m "update some dotfiles"

This only stages and commits files which are already tracked.