There's also `homesick`[1], which is a Ruby dotfile manager. If you don't feel like managing a Ruby distro and want something more portable (and `homesick` looks to be a stale project anyway), you can use `homeshick`[2] which is a Bash port that's still being maintained. (I use `homeshick`)
The last time I dug into this, `homeshick` was had more features and fit my needs better than `stow`.
Alternatively, check out YADM[3], "Yet Another Dotfile Manager", which I'm probably switching to once I get some time.
[1] https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick
[2] https://github.com/andsens/homeshick
[3] https://yadm.io/
In Using GNU Stow to manage your dotfiles (2012)technicalpickles
homesick
Ruby2011–2022
technicalpickles / homesick
homesick
Your home directory is your castle. Don't leave your dotfiles behind.
15Distinct people
16Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
2.5KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Your home directory is your castle. Don't leave your dotfiles behind.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
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Also in these discussions
- andsens/homeshick · linked in 2 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
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Mentions over time
HN mentions by year16 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2011-05-16 22:29:25 UTC to 2022-07-27 19:33:36 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2012 | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
homesick
Your home directory is your castle. Don't leave your dotfiles behind.
Homesick is sorta like rip, but for dotfiles. It uses git to clone a repository containing dotfiles, and saves them in ~/.homesick. It then allows you to symlink all the dotfiles into place with a single command.
We call a repository that is compatible with homesick to be a 'castle'. To act as a castle, a repository must be organized like so:
Contains a 'home' directory
'home' contains any number of files and directories that begin with '.'
To get started, install homesick first:
gem install homesick
If you're starting from scratch and don't have a castle yet, generate one:
homesick generate ~/.homesick/repos/my-dotfiles
This creates a new git repository with a home/ directory ready for your dotfiles. If you have a github.user set in your git config, it will also add a GitHub remote automatically. You can then track files into it:
homesick track ~/.vimrc my-dotfiles
Otherwise, if you already have a castle hosted somewhere, clone it:
Next, you use the homesick command to clone a castle:
homesick clone git://github.com/technicalpickles/pickled-vim.git
Alternatively, if it's on github, there's a slightly shorter way:
homesick clone technicalpickles/pickled-vim
With the castle cloned, you can now link its contents into your home dir:
homesick link pickled-vim
You can remove symlinks anytime when you don't need them anymore
homesick unlink pickled-vim
If you need to add further configuration steps you can add these in a file called '.homesickrc' in the root of a castle. Once you've cloned a castle with a .homesickrc run the configuration with:
homesick rc CASTLE
The contents of the .homesickrc file must be valid Ruby code as the file will be executed with Ruby's eval construct. The .homesickrc is also passed the current homesick object during its execution and this is available within the .homesickrc file as the 'self' variable. As the rc operation can be destructive the command normally asks for confirmation before proceeding. You can bypass this by passing the '--force' option, for example homesick rc --force CASTLE.
If you're not sure what castles you have around, you can easily list them:
homesick list
To pull your castle (or all castles):
homesick pull --all|CASTLE
To commit your castle's changes:
homesick commit CASTLE
To push your castle:
homesick push CASTLE
To open a terminal in the root of a castle:
homesick cd CASTLE
To open your default editor in the root of a castle (the $EDITOR environment variable must be set):
homesick open CASTLE
To execute a shell command inside the root directory of a given castle:
homesick exec CASTLE COMMAND
To execute a shell command inside the root directory of every cloned castle:
homesick exec_all COMMAND
Not sure what else homesick has up its sleeve? There's always the built in help:
homesick help
If you ever want to see what version of homesick you have type:
homesick version|-v|--version
.homesick_subdir
homesick link basically makes symlink to only first depth in castle/home. If you want to link nested files/directories, please use .homesick_subdir.
For example, when you have castle like this:
castle/home
`-- .config
`-- fooapp
|-- config1
|-- config2
`-- config3
and have home like this:
$ tree -a
~
|-- .config
| `-- barapp
| |-- config1
| |-- config2
| `-- config3
`-- .emacs.d
|-- elisp
`-- inits
You may want to symlink only to castle/home/.config/fooapp instead of castle/home/.config because you already have ~/.config/barapp. In this case, you can use .homesick_subdir. Please write "directories you want to look up sub directories (instead of just first depth)" in this file.
castle/.homesick_subdir
.config
and run homesick link CASTLE. The result is:
~
|-- .config
| |-- barapp
| | |-- config1
| | |-- config2
| | `-- config3
| `-- fooapp -> castle/home/.config/fooapp
`-- .emacs.d
|-- elisp
`-- inits
Or homesick track NESTED_FILE CASTLE adds a line automatically. For example:
homesick track .emacs.d/elisp castle
castle/.homesick_subdir
.config
.emacs.d
home directory
~
|-- .config
| |-- barapp
| | |-- config1
| | |-- config2
| | `-- config3
| `-- fooapp -> castle/home/.config/fooapp
`-- .emacs.d
|-- elisp -> castle/home/.emacs.d/elisp
`-- inits
and castle
castle/home
|-- .config
| `-- fooapp
| |-- config1
| |-- config2
| `-- config3
`-- .emacs.d
`-- elisp
Supported Ruby Versions
Homesick is tested on the following Ruby versions:
3.2
3.3
3.4
Note on Patches/Pull Requests
Fork the project.
Make your feature addition or bug fix.
Add tests for it. This is important so it doesn't get broken unintentionally in a future version.
Commit, but do not touch the rakefile, version, or history. (If you want your own version, that is fine — just bump the version in a separate commit that can be ignored when merging.)
Open a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.
Need homesick without the ruby dependency?
Check out homeshick.
Copyright
Copyright (c) 2010 Joshua Nichols. See LICENSE for details.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
16 sourcesstow is nice, but it's too basic once you start managing your homedir in earnest across multiple machines and need machine-specific configurations, secrets, etc.
I prefer homeshick[0], a Bash port of homesick[1] (which is Ruby).
[0] https://github.com/andsens/homeshick
[1] https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick
In Show HN: Manage Dotfiles with StowI use Homesick (https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick).
It's basically a dotfile manager. Symbolically links your stuff and runs scripts.
In Ask HN: What do you use to manage dotfiles?A different solution, that's a little more embedded in the Github and Ruby world: homesick (https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick).
In Dotfiles are your Digital BackpackYou should be fine for sure. Some software you need to be using (in my opinion, at least):
- iTerm 2 (use ZSH for your shell and oh-my-zsh to extend it);
- Sublime (although it looks like abandonware because it hasn't been updated since December of last year);
- Dash for reading documentation;
- Hub (https://github.com/github/hub) to make Git better;
- Homesick (https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick) for keeping your dotfiles backed up properly
Some other things you may want to look into for setting up your dev env:
- Boxen (https://boxen.github.com/_
- Laptop by Thoughbot (https://github.com/thoughtbot/laptop)
- Homebrew (this one's kind of obvious)
In Ask HN: MacBook Air for Web Development?I've had success syncing my SublimeText config across machines using homesick (https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick), but this looks pretty slick.
One issue with syncing configs using either method right now is that certain keyboard shortcuts don't make sense across OS types, and your font size may not work well at different monitor resolutions (especially retina vs non-retina). See http://www.sublimetext.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5135 for related discussion. If you could incorporate per-OS/machine config overrides into this it would be very handy.
In Show HN: Sublimall, SublimeText synchronizedAbsolutely! I'm really only using this for SCP-like syntax when SSHing into unfamiliar boxes.
WARNING: SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION BELOW
Unless, you know, you used something like homes(h)ick...
https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick
In Show HN: ssh and cd get marriedjust for completeness sake and because no one mentioned it yet: https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick
yes, you need ruby for it but I dont really see that as a problem. Its a bit confusing at first (could be just me, but I still dont get why you have basically 2 repos, one managed by homesick and the one you checked out yourself) but it works fairly well. Takes care of symlinking, updating and whatever you want.
In Using GNU Stow to manage your dotfilesNot mine, but homesick is a nice little gem that seems to also do what ghar does. I have no opinion on whether one or the other is better :)
https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick
In Dots - Modularize your dotfilesVersioning their home directories to git, and doing it in-place instead of linking specific files from a ~/.dotfiles or similar.
(See https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick for an example of how to do it right.)
In Things I found on GitHub: shell historyHomesick is another good one
https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick
In Love Your TerminalIf you're looking for a mature alternative, there's homesick @ https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick. I use it everywhere and it's great. Unfortunately, it does have a ruby dependency.
In Show HN: fresh - a tool to manage and distribute dot files (think Bundler)I use this ruby script: https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick
In Steve Losh's .vimrcWell then you have to extend the argument to plugins as well, and certain plugins (SnipMate, AutoComplPop, Fugitive, etc.) can increase productivity by several orders of magnitude.
It's best to store your .vimrc + .vim/ folder on GitHub or a thumb-drive for easy restoration rather than crippling yourself with a limited configuration. Someone else mentioned Homesick (https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick) which works really well.
In What is in your .vimrcThank you. Here is a link to homesick for others:
https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick
In What is in your .vimrcShowing the 15 most recent of 16 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.