yui

結 — target-as-truth dotfiles manager

yui is a dotfiles manager that flips the chezmoi flow on its head: edit your live configs (the target), and the source repo updates automatically. Built to fix three chezmoi pain points:

• having to edit the source first and apply afterwards is a constant tax
• apps overwrite the target directly, so source and target drift
• new files apps create aren't tracked, and you can't even notice them

How it works

The actual files live in your dotfiles repo, and the targets are hardlinks / junctions / symlinks pointing at them. When an app writes to the target, the link routes the write straight through to source — no copy step, no drift.

Drop a .yuilink marker file inside any directory in your source tree to make yui link that whole directory as a single unit — files an app creates inside it land directly in your source repo.

When an editor's atomic-save breaks a hardlink, yui looks at mtimes, content, and git status to decide between auto-absorb (target → source, with backup), relink only (contents identical), or ask (anomaly).

Install

cargo install yui-cli

Binary lives at ~/.cargo/bin/yui. Make sure that's on your PATH.

Quick start

# Initialize a fresh source repo at $DOTFILES (and install git hooks).
yui init --git-hooks

# Edit $DOTFILES/config.toml to declare your mounts, then:
yui apply        # render templates + link targets + auto-absorb drift
yui status       # show drift across all mounts
yui doctor       # diagnose your environment

Minimal $DOTFILES/config.toml:

[vars]
git_email = "you@example.com"

[[mount.entry]]
src = "home"
# `~` expands to $HOME on Unix and $USERPROFILE on Windows — use it freely.
dst = "~"

[[mount.entry]]
src  = "appdata"
dst  = "{{ env(name='APPDATA') }}"
when = "yui.os == 'windows'"

config.local.toml (gitignored) is for machine-local overrides:

[vars]
git_email = "you@work.example"

Built-in variables exposed to Tera: yui.os, yui.host, yui.user, yui.arch, yui.source. Environment variables are read with {{ env(name='HOME') }}. Path values (in dst, --source, YUI_SOURCE, .yuilink [[link]] dst, etc.) accept a leading ~ / ~/... which expands to $HOME (or $USERPROFILE on Windows) at apply time — dst = "~/.config/foo" Just Works™ across platforms.

Status

Pre-release. MVP design complete; implementation in progress.

License

MIT