Getting Started — `apply`

guisu apply materialises the source state into the destination directory, applying templates, decrypting, and respecting conflict rules. It is the command you will run most often — usually via guisu update which is git pull + apply.

Basic usage

guisu apply                 # apply everything
guisu apply --dry-run       # show what would change, do not write
guisu apply --interactive   # prompt for conflicts in a TUI
guisu apply --force         # overwrite destination without asking
guisu apply path1 path2     # apply only specific paths
guisu apply --include 'dot_*' --exclude '*.tmp'

How status is determined

For each file, Guisu compares three sources of truth:

Target — the rendered, decrypted content the source state wants.
Destination — the file currently on disk.
Database — the content hash stored the last time apply succeeded (in <source>/.guisu-state.db).

The result is one of Synced, Added, Modified, Removed, or Conflict.

Target	Destination	Database	Status	Default action
A	A	A	Synced	Skip
A	B	A	Modified (by you)	Overwrite
A	A	B	Modified (in source)	Apply
A	B	C	Conflict	Prompt (`--interactive`) or overwrite
A	—	—	Added	Create
—	B	B	Removed	Delete
—	B	A	Modified + Removed	Conflict

Interactive mode

--interactive opens a TUI for every conflict, showing a side-by-side diff and four actions: Overwrite, Skip, View Diff, Quit.

guisu apply --interactive

Tip

Pipe-friendly output guisu apply --dry-run prints a list of planned changes. Combine with guisu info for a complete preview before a real apply.

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
`0`	All changes applied (or nothing to do).
`1`	An error occurred.
Non-zero with `--dry-run`	A planned change would have been made.

Hooks

apply runs pre- and post-hooks from .guisu/hooks/{pre,post}/{always,once,onchange}/ around the apply. See Hooks.

Next step

Read the User Guide for the file-attribute conventions, or jump to Templates if your dotfiles need environment-specific rendering.

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