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Profiles

Profiles are named collections of packages that can be applied together. They let you maintain different sets of dotfiles for different contexts (e.g., work vs personal machines) and switch between them.

Creating a Profile

dots profile create work

This creates an empty profile. Add packages to it:

dots profile add work personal/zsh personal/nvim personal/git personal/tmux

Applying a Profile

Install all packages in a profile:

dots profile apply work

This installs every package listed in the profile that isn't already installed.

Switching Profiles

Switch the active profile:

dots profile switch personal

This sets core.active_profile in your config. It does not automatically install or remove packages — use dots profile apply after switching to install the new profile's packages.

Managing Packages in Profiles

dots profile add work personal/docker       # add a package
dots profile remove work personal/docker    # remove a package

Viewing Profiles

dots profile list          # list all profile names
dots profile show work     # show details of a profile

show displays the profile name, any extends parent, and the full package list.

Inheritance with extends

A profile can inherit packages from a parent profile:

# yaml-language-server: $schema=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jlrickert/dots/main/schemas/profile.json
name: work
extends: base
packages:
  - personal/slack
  - personal/docker

When work extends base, applying work installs all packages from base plus the packages listed in work. The inheritance chain is resolved with deduplication — a package listed in both parent and child only installs once.

Export and Import

Export a profile to share it or back it up:

dots profile export work > work-profile.yaml

Import a profile from a YAML file:

dots profile import work-profile.yaml

This is useful for:

  • Sharing profiles between machines
  • Backing up profile definitions
  • Version-controlling profiles separately from taps

Storage

Profiles are stored as YAML files in the dots config directory under profiles/:

Platform Path
macOS / Linux ~/.config/dots/profiles/<name>.yaml
Windows %APPDATA%\dots\profiles\<name>.yaml

They are managed entirely through the dots profile commands — you don't need to edit profile files directly.

When dots writes a profile, it prepends a yaml-language-server modeline pointing at schemas/profile.json so editors can offer schema validation and completion.

Example Workflow

# Set up profiles for different machines
dots profile create base
dots profile add base personal/zsh personal/git personal/nvim

dots profile create work
# work inherits from base, so you only add work-specific packages
dots profile add work personal/docker personal/slack

dots profile create personal
dots profile add personal personal/gaming personal/media

# On a work machine
dots profile apply work       # installs base + work packages
dots profile switch work      # marks work as active

# On a personal machine
dots profile apply personal   # installs base + personal packages
dots profile switch personal