Getting Started — init

guisu init is the entry point: it obtains a source repository (by cloning from GitHub or by initialising one locally) and, by default, runs an apply to materialise your dotfiles.

Clone an existing GitHub repository

guisu init username                       # shorthand for github.com/username/dotfiles
guisu init https://github.com/username/dotfiles.git
guisu init --ssh username                 # use SSH instead of HTTPS
guisu init --depth 1 username             # shallow clone (faster, no history)
guisu init --no-apply username            # clone but do not apply yet

guisu init clones into the source directory (default ~/.local/share/guisu) and then runs guisu apply. On the first run, apply uses interactive mode by default so you can review the changes before they land in your home directory.

Initialise a brand-new local repository

mkdir ~/dotfiles && cd ~/dotfiles
git init
cd ..
guisu init

This creates a new directory, initialises git inside it, and writes a starter .guisu.toml. The next guisu add knows where to put files.

Note

Where does the source go? By default, Guisu uses ~/.local/share/guisu as the source directory — the same convention as chezmoi. Override per-call with --source or globally in .guisu.toml under [general] src_dir.

Where things go

What init does not do

init does not commit any uncommitted changes. After cloning, the source repo is exactly as the remote left it; if you later guisu add a file, that change is staged in git but not committed.

Next step

Getting Started — add.