Skip to content

Use scripts to perform actions

Understand how scripts work

chezmoi supports scripts that are executed when you run chezmoi apply. These scripts can be configured to run every time, only when their contents have changed, or only if they haven't been run before.

Scripts are any file in the source directory with the prefix run_, and they are executed in alphabetical order.

  • run_ scripts: These scripts are executed every time you run chezmoi apply.
  • run_onchange_ scripts: These scripts are only executed if their content has changed since the last time they were run.
  • run_once_ scripts: These scripts are executed once for each unique version of the content. If the script is a template, the content is hashed after template execution. chezmoi tracks the content's SHA256 hash and stores it in a database. If the content has been run before (even under a different filename), the script will not run again unless the content itself changes.

Scripts break chezmoi's declarative approach and should be used sparingly. All scripts should be idempotent, including run_onchange_ and run_once_ scripts.

Scripts are normally run while chezmoi updates your dotfiles. For example, run_b.sh will be run after updating a.txt and before updating c.txt. To run scripts before or after the updates, use the before_ or after_ attributes, respectively, e.g., run_once_before_install-password-manager.sh.

Scripts must be created manually in the source directory, typically by running chezmoi cd and then creating a file with a run_ prefix. There is no need to set the executable bit on the script.

Scripts with the .tmpl suffix are treated as templates, with the usual template variables available. If the template resolves to only whitespace or an empty string, the script will not be executed, which is useful for disabling scripts dynamically.

When executing a script, chezmoi generates the script contents in a file in a temporary directory with the executable bit set and then executes it using exec(3). As a result, the script must either include a #! line or be an executable binary. Script working directory is set to the first existing parent directory in the destination tree.

If a .chezmoiscripts directory exists at the root of the source directory, scripts in this directory are executed as normal scripts, without creating a corresponding directory in the target state.

In verbose mode, the scripts' contents are printed before execution. In dry-run mode, scripts are not executed.

Set environment variables

You can set extra environment variables for your scripts, hooks, and commands in the scriptEnv section of your config file. For example, to set the MY_VAR environment variable to my_value, specify:

~/.config/chezmoi/chezmoi.toml
[scriptEnv]
    MY_VAR = "my_value"

chezmoi sets a number of environment variables when running scripts, including CHEZMOI=1 and common template data like CHEZMOI_OS and CHEZMOI_ARCH.

Don't show scripts that would run in chezmoi diff/chezmoi status

By default, chezmoi diff will print the contents of scripts that would be run by chezmoi apply. To exclude scripts from the output of chezmoi diff, set diff.exclude in your configuration file, for example:

~/.config/chezmoi/chezmoi.toml
[diff]
    exclude = ["scripts"]

Similarly, chezmoi status will print the names of the scripts that it will execute with the status R. This can similarly disabled by setting status.exclude to ["scripts"] in your configuration file.

Install packages with scripts

Change to the source directory and create a file called run_onchange_install-packages.sh. In this file create your package installation script, e.g.

#!/bin/sh
sudo apt install ripgrep

The next time you run chezmoi apply or chezmoi update this script will be run. As it has the run_onchange_ prefix, it will not be run again unless its contents change, for example if you add more packages to be installed.

This script can also be a template. For example, if you create run_onchange_install-packages.sh.tmpl with the contents:

~/.local/share/chezmoi/run_onchange_install-packages.sh.tmpl
{{ if eq .chezmoi.os "linux" -}}
#!/bin/sh
sudo apt install ripgrep
{{ else if eq .chezmoi.os "darwin" -}}
#!/bin/sh
brew install ripgrep
{{ end -}}

This will install ripgrep on both Debian/Ubuntu Linux systems and macOS.

Run a script when the contents of another file changes

chezmoi's run_ scripts are run every time you run chezmoi apply, whereas run_onchange_ scripts are run only when their contents have changed, after executing them as templates. You can use this to cause a run_onchange_ script to run when the contents of another file has changed by including a checksum of the other file's contents in the script.

For example, if your dconf settings are stored in dconf.ini in your source directory then you can make chezmoi apply only load them when the contents of dconf.ini has changed by adding the following script as run_onchange_dconf-load.sh.tmpl:

~/.local/share/chezmoi/run_onchange_dconf-load.sh.tmpl
#!/bin/bash

# dconf.ini hash: {{ include "dconf.ini" | sha256sum }}
dconf load / < {{ joinPath .chezmoi.sourceDir "dconf.ini" | quote }}

As the SHA256 sum of dconf.ini is included in a comment in the script, the contents of the script will change whenever the contents of dconf.ini are changed, so chezmoi will re-run the script whenever the contents of dconf.ini change.

In this example you should also add dconf.ini to .chezmoiignore so chezmoi does not create dconf.ini in your home directory.

Clear the state of all run_onchange_ and run_once_ scripts

chezmoi stores whether and when run_onchange_ and run_once_ scripts have been run in its persistent state.

To clear the state of run_onchange_ scripts, run:

chezmoi state delete-bucket --bucket=entryState

To clear the state of run_once_ scripts, run:

chezmoi state delete-bucket --bucket=scriptState