dfm

Standalone, single-binary dotfiles manager. Profile format is inspired by dotbot but dfm is its own thing — no Python runtime, no git submodule.

Install

macOS (Homebrew)

brew tap bitcldr/tap
brew install dfm

Linux / macOS (shell script)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitcldr/dfm/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

Drops dfm into ~/.local/bin (override with DFM_INSTALL_DIR). Pin a version with DFM_VERSION=vX.Y.Z.

Quick start

dfm apply <profile>...

Profiles are read from ./profiles/<name>.conf.yaml relative to the base dir (-C <dir>, default cwd).

Commands

Command	Purpose
dfm apply <profile>...	Apply one or more profiles in order
dfm diff <profile>	Show planned changes, no writes
dfm doctor	Verify installed symlinks still resolve
dfm status	Show last applied profiles and timestamp
dfm list	List profiles found in ./profiles/
dfm completion <shell>	Output shell completion script

Global flags: -C <dir>, -c <path>, --dry-run, --dbg.

Shell completion

# fish
dfm completion fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/dfm.fish

# bash — add to ~/.bashrc
source <(dfm completion bash)

# zsh — add to ~/.zshrc
source <(dfm completion zsh)

Completes subcommands, flags, and profile names (via dfm list). Set $DFM_DIR to point completions at a non-cwd base directory.

Supported directives

Directives: defaults, link, shell, clean, create. Unknown directives are rejected.

• when: — gate any directive on os, arch, or hostname
• Non-symlink targets are backed up to ~/.dotfiles-backup/<timestamp>/ instead of failing
• shell entries use name: + script: (multiline blocks supported)

Full reference: docs/yaml-spec.md.

Non-goals

Templating, secret management, package installation, plugins, profile inheritance.

License

MIT