bindle-cli

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bindle

bindle is a configuration and dotfile management tool for your personal unix-like computer.

bindle provides an easy way to manage a user's configuration files, particularly:

• dotfiles,
• user binaries and scripts (ie, anything in $HOME/bin),
• scripts for configuration and bootstrapping.

bindle compliments manual configuration and versioning. bindle tracks files in a git repository with a simple and logical directory structure that works great for dotfile versioning with or without the bindle program itself. bindle is written as a single well-structured shell script and can be used with any modern unix-like system.

See xwmx/dotfiles for an example of a configuration managed with bindle.

Installation

Homebrew

To install with Homebrew:

brew install xwmx/taps/bindle

npm

To install with npm:

npm install --global bindle-cli

bpkg

To install with bpkg:

bpkg install xwmx/bindle

Manual

To install manually, simply add the bindle script to your $PATH. If you already have a ~/bin directory, you can use the following command:

curl -L https://raw.github.com/xwmx/bindle/master/bindle \
  -o ~/bin/bindle && chmod +x ~/bin/bindle

Usage

Help Information

You can view the usage and help information by running bindle with no arguments or with the --help or -h options.

Setup

If you don't currently have a local repository tracking your dotfiles, you can create one using

bindle init

This will initialize a git repository at $HOME/.bindle with the following structure:

~/.bindle
├── .gitignore
├── home/
├── bin/
├── local/
└── scripts/
    ├── bootstrap/
    ├── configure/
    ├── customize/
    └── install/

You can change the location used for storing dotfiles by adding a .bindlerc file at $HOME/.bindlerc and setting the $BINDLEPATH variable to the desired location:

export BINDLEPATH="/a/custom/path"

Overview

home

Contains all dotfiles and directories from $HOME that have been added to the repository.

The bindle command assumes that any items at the root level of this directory are 1) dotfiles (files and directories with a . prefix like .bashrc or .vim) and 2) normally exist at your $HOME path, aka ~/, which is the top level of your user account's home directory.

To list existing dotfiles in $HOME, use bindle list

bindle list

To track items from $HOME, use bindle track:

bindle track .bashrc

This adds the file or directory to BINDLEPATH/home and creates a symbolic link in $HOME referencing the file or directory.

Once you've added a file, you need to commit it to the repository.

bindle commit

This will git add the changed files and do a git commit. See bindle help commit for more information.

To list all tracked files:

bindle list tracked

If you want to stop tracking a dotfile or directory, run bindle untrack:

bindle untrack .bashrc

This removes the symbolic link in $HOME and copies the original file back to $HOME from $BINDLEPATH/home.

Example

An example bindle-managed home directory:

xwmx/dotfiles/home

bin

bin is intended as a directory for executables and scripts that you'd like to track along with your dotfiles. To make the executables in this directory accessible to your shell environment, include the following line in your .bashrc or equivalent:

PATH="${BINDLEPATH}/bin:${PATH}"

Example

An example bindle-managed bin directory:

xwmx/dotfiles/bin

local

This directory is excluded from the git repository, and therefore can be used for storing things related to the configuration that you don't want to track and don't want in the default directories.

scripts

scripts contains several subdirectories for contriguration scripts. Scripts or programs in these directories can be written in any language. bindle makes no assumptions about any of the scripts in these directories and will simply run them.

To run a script that is located at $BINDLEPATH/scripts/example.bash:

bindle run example.bash

Scripts can be organized in subdirectories. Newly-created bindle projects contain several placeholder directories: bootstrap, configure, customize, install.

To run a script that is located at $BINDLEPATH/scripts/install/example.bash:

bindle run install/example.sh

For more information, see bindle help run

Example

An example bindle-managed scripts directory:

xwmx/dotfiles/script

scripts/bootstrap

Scripts that bootstrap the user account and user-controlled parts of the system.

For example, bootstrap scripts could set up some default folders and/or call a series of install, configure, and customize scripts. Generally, a bootstrap script would only be called once, during an initial setup.

scripts/install

Scripts that install programs, such as with package management systems.

For example, you could have a bash script that contains commands for installing programs via a system-wide package manager like homebrew or a language-specific one like LuaRocks.

scripts/configure

Scripts that run perform system configuration operations, like setting preferences.

scripts/customize

Scripts that customize any aspect of the configuration or system.

.gitignore

.gitignore can be used to exclude sensitive information from directories in the repository. When generating a new repository, bindle excludes everything in any added .ssh directory except for the .ssh/config.

.gitignore is also useful for dot directories that have both config files and large temp or cache files. For example, a .rbenv directory for the rbenv tool contains both configuration files and entire Ruby installations that are many gigabytes in size. You can use .gitignore to exclude the ruby installation directories while tracking the configuration files.

Git Commands

To view the help and usage information for any command, use:

bindle help <command-name>

add

Usage:
  bindle add <filename> [--force]
 
Description:
  `add` is an alias for `track`. For more information, run:
    `bindle help track`

commands

Usage:
  bindle commands [--raw]
 
Options:
  --raw  Display the command list without formatting.
 
Description:
  Display the list of available commands.

commit

Usage:
  bindle commit [<message>]
 
Description:
  Commit the current changes to git. If a message is provided, it will be used
  as the commit message. Otherwise, git will open your default editor.

dir

Usage:
  bindle dir
 
Description:
  Print the current value of $BINDLEPATH

dotfiles

Usage:
  bindle dotfiles
 
Description:
  List all dotfiles. Alias for `bindle status`.

edit

Usage:
  bindle edit
  bindle edit [<filename>]
 
Description:
  Open a tracked file or, when no filename is specified, the entire tracked
  repository in you $EDITOR, currently set to 'vim'.

git

Usage:
  bindle git command [--options] [<arguments>]
 
Description:
  Run a git command within the $BINDLEPATH directory.

help

sage:
  bindle help [<command>]
 
Description:
  Display help information for bindle or a specified command.

init

Usage:
  bindle init [<source-repository> [--initialize-submodules]] [<bindlepath>] [--skip-bindlerc]
 
Options:
  --initialize-submodules  Initialize repository submodules when used with a
                           <source-repository> argument.
  --skip-bindlerc          Don't generate a bindlerc file.
 
Description:
  Create initial repository file structure.
 
  When provided with a URL as the first argument or a second argument the git
  repository at that URL is cloned and used as the tracking repository.
 
  When provided with an absolute path as the lone argument or second argument
  after a repository URL, the initial repository is created at the specified
  path and a configuration file is created at $HOME/.bindlerc with that
  location set as the $BINDLEPATH.

link

Usage:
  bindle link [<filename>] [--overwrite [--with-backup]]
 
Options:
  --overwrite    Overwrite any files that exist in the directory where links
                 are being created, meaning that any conflicting files will be
                 deleted and links to the corresponding repository file will
                 be created.
  --with-backup  When used in combination with --overwrite, any overwritten
                 files are first renamed with a '.bak' extension. If a file
                 with the same name plus '.bak' extension already exists,
                 nothing is done to this file and no link is created.
 
Description:
  Create a link in $HOME that references the corresponding item in the
  tracked directory.
 
  By default, the command links all files that exist in the tracked directory.
  If a filename is passed to the link command, then it only acts on that file.

list

Usage:
  bindle list [tracked | untracked] [<search-string>]
 
Description:
  List all files in $HOME.
 
  If 'tracked' or 'untracked' as passed as arguments to 'list', then only the
  files with those statuses are listed. When provided with a seach string, all
  matching filenames will be printed.

pull

Usage:
  bindle pull
 
Description:
  Pull latest changes from the remote repository.

push

Usage:
  bindle push
 
Description:
  Push local commits to the remote repository.

rename

Usage:
  bindle rename <old-filename> <new-filename>
 
Decription:
  Rename a tracked file and its corresponding link in $HOME.

restore

Usage:
  bindle restore <filename>
 
Description:
  `restore` is an alias for `untrack`. For more information, run:
    `bindle help untrack`

run

Usage:
  bindle run ( list | <script-name> )
 
Description:
  Run and list scripts.
 
  Scripts can be added to:
    $BINDLEPATH/scripts/

scripts

Usage:
  bindle scripts
 
Description:
  List all scripts. Alias for `bindle run`.

status

Usage:
  bindle status
 
Description:
  List status of files in $HOME with filenames matching those in
  $BINDLEPATH/home/.
 
  Indicators display information about the status of each entry:
   ✅   - Identical, indicating a valid symbolic link to the tracked file
     e  - A file exists, but it's not linked to tracked file
      x - No file exists

submodules

Usage:
  bindle submodules ( sync | update )
 
Subcommands:
  sync    Sync all submodules with the current head commit. This usually be
          should be performed after a `bindle pull`. Equivalent git command:
            git submodule update --recursive --init
  update  Update all first-level submodules to the latest commit in each
          submodule's origin repository. Equivalent git command:
            git submodule update --init --remote

sync

Usage:
  bindle sync
 
Description:
  Pull latest changes from the remote repository and sync submodules.

track

Usage:
  bindle track <filename> [--force]
 
Options:
  --force  Overwrite files and folders in the repository that have the same
           name as the item(s) being added.
 
Description:
  Track the specified file, adding it to the repository and adding a link in
  $HOME to the tracked file.

tracked

Usage:
  bindle tracked
 
Description:
  List all tracked dotfiles in $HOME.

unlink

Usage:
  bindle unlink [<filename>]
 
Description:
  Remove symlinks in $HOME.
 
  By default, the command removes all of the symlinks pointing to items in
  tracked directory. If a filename is passed to the unlink command, then it
  only acts on symlinks to that file.

untrack

Usage:
  bindle untrack <filename>
 
Description:
  Unlink the specified file and move it from the tracked location in the
  repository back to original location in $HOME.

untracked

Usage:
  bindle untracked
 
Description:
  List all untracked dotfiles in $HOME.

version

Usage:
  bindle ( version | --version )
 
Description:
  Display the current program version.

More Resources

• xwmx/dotfiles
• xwmx/dotfile-research