How do you manage your dotfiles?

Git and symbolic links still.

Ive heard good things about GNU Stow.

If you’re using symlinks, you should definitely check out Stow.
That's the way I do it, although I have a custom script that generates the symlinks for me. Not sure why I'd need anything more

https://www.chezmoi.io/ if you've got some complexity with your setup. otherwise, could be overkill.

What I really like about chezmoi is how it can retrieve secrets stored on Bitwarden. Your git history is clean of secrets but you can have them referenced on your dotfiles.
Had a homebrew Git setup for ages and recently started using Chezmoi. It's only been a few weeks, but so far it's been pretty great!
I use Chezmoi but I have to point out some of its downfalls vs. other dotfile managers, particularly if someone is looking to migrate to it.

Go's templating lib is incredibly unergonomic.

Identifying file perms and visibility in by special naming convention is pretty gross. Also makes it more difficult to migrate to another solution.

If you're deleting files, you need to remember to do it through chezmoi remove .... You can't just rm them from your dotfiles directory, because chezmoi does not sync state; it simply applies what's currently in your repo.

Handling multiple systems through .chezmoiignore ends up being overly verbose and unintuitive vs. the approach used by other dotfile managers

Despite these gripes I still use it because deployment via a single binary is convenient, and there's enough control through the generated config file + system info to handle multiple kinds of deployments sort-of-sensibly (see point 4 above).
I adore chezmoi
- it's so useful! I used to have some terrible setup going with branches for different OSes in my dotfiles, and chezmoi really simplified the whole thing

https://github.com/harryprayiv/nix-config

Like to see so many fellow nix(os)ers here, I think the amount/ratio of nixers here is quite a bit higher than previously on reddit.
- 🫡

I prefer to keep tooling for that at a minimum. Therefore I use git only. My approach is taken from here: https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles The only difference: My git alias is dotfiles not config. I find that to be less confusing. Additionally, I source system-specific configs, where appropriate. These are not stored in dotfiles. There is a small todo section in my readme.

I do the same! It works quite well.

i take a Phoenix approach with my dotfiles.

Once a decade when my computer crashes and burns, from the ashes emerges a blank slate of dotfiles that is purged of all unnecessary hacks that have accumulated. With a tear and a hopeful outlook, I rush to set the settings I am actually dependent on.

I really need to take more interest in backing up my dotfiles 😭

I'm surprised it's not already mentioned in these comments: https://yadm.io/

I’m all in on nix with home-manager these days. Really seems like an ideal framework for my dotfiles and of all the systems I’ve tried over the years this is the one I’m happiest with.

Hell of a learning curve, though.

Yep it's like maintaining a codebase that's getting increasingly better. It's a rabbit-hole and a timesink (kind of because you're trying to get the best out of it, and thus configure likely more) but I think it's worth it. It gets better overtime as well

Tried all the fancy ideas, never stuck with it. I just use git to track changes now and move on with my life. There are like four functions I carry around with me, then whatever path additions and init scripts I pile up. It’s so light it doesn’t really matter when I move to a new machine

They're in git

I use NixOS with Home Manager and flakes.

I've done symlinks into a separate directory before, but by far my favorite method is to just let ~ be a git repo. It's maximally simple, no other tooling needed besides git.

There are a few key steps to making this work well:

echo '*' > ~/.gitignore: This way git status isn't full of untracked files. I can still git add -f what I actually want to track.
git branch -m dots: For clarity in my shell prompt.
[ -d "$HOME/.local/$(hostname)/bin" ] && PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.local/$(hostname)/bin and similar if there's config I want to apply only to certain hosts.

Pretty happy with nixos these days, after the initial (crazy) learning curve. But I really like the creative simplicity of this idea
- ~~Stole~~ Forked this idea from Drew Devault.
  
  I'm looking at NixOS now for my server, and while I understand the host config, I'm curious whether I could integrate this into my config in some way.

I used bare git repo before, then switch to GNU Stow + Nix home-manager.

I still put them in gists, with no real tooling. I pull them in selectively when I get a new machine.

I use git (without remote repo, but could be easily added). Actually this simple bare git repo technique is something I enjoy doing in lots of places where config files lie.

Basically, it's only: alias config="/usr/bin/git --git-dir=\${HOME}/.myconf/ --work-tree=\${HOME}"

Of course, a first time setup is required:

git init --bare $HOME/.myconf
config config status.showUntrackedFiles no

I got this setup from a comment on HackerNews long ago. OP comment was rather insightful: "No extra tooling, no symlinks, files are tracked on a version control system, you can use different branches for different computers, you can replicate you configuration easily on new installation."

But I never used any branches, prefer to keep it extremely KISS. I even avoid commiting, just staging area that I keep updating with each OS upgrade. Only this bit of extension I use... since I don't push to any remotes (prefer keeping dotfiles private), I needed a way to copy all of the tracked files (e.g. to have my settings on a work laptop, of course I then go ahead and clean any boilerplate before moving such an 'exported' folder)...

config_export() {
    echo "Copying only staged files, it is recommended to run beforehand: $ config add -u ~"
    mkdir -p ~/.config_export/
    CONFIG_FILES=$(config status | /usr/bin/grep 'new file:' | cut -d':' -f2 | sed -E 's/^ +//')
    printf "%s\n" "${CONFIG_FILES[@]}" | xargs -I {} cp --parent '{}' ~/.config_export/
    ls -halt ~/.config_export/
}

https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick
It's a bit old (hasn't been updated in 4 years), but works great.

I store them in Dropbox and symlink them to their correct location.

I do that instead of the standard Git method because it means I don't have to worry about remembering to sync each computer. Everything syncs immediately.

I use yadm. It's a wrapper around git with a few extra commands for dotfile management.