dotfiles/

John McLevey
Professor & Head, Sociology and Criminology
Memorial University of Newfoundland
mclevey@mun.ca

Personal dotfiles managed with git and GNU stow, designed for macOS (ARM64) and Linux (x86_64, Ubuntu).

How Stow Works

Each subdirectory in dotfiles/ mirrors the home directory structure for a given program. Running stow <directory> creates symlinks from ~/ pointing into the dotfiles repo. For example, stow zsh symlinks dotfiles/zsh/.zshrc to ~/.zshrc.

This works for files and nested subdirectories, including hidden ones. Everything stays in one version-controlled directory, portable across machines.

To stow all packages at once:

cds

The cds function (defined in .zshrc) cleans .DS_Store and .pyc files, then runs stow --restow */ across all packages.

Packages

Package	What it manages
atuin	Shell history sync and search
claude	Claude Code config: global CLAUDE.md, settings.json, agents, commands
conda	.condarc (channel and solver defaults)
ghostty	Ghostty terminal config
git	.gitconfig and .gitignore_global
goose	.goosehints (Goose AI assistant preferences)
matplotlib	Matplotlib style and config
nvim	Neovim config (NvChad)
package_manager	Brew leaves (macOS) and apt packages (Linux)
pypoetry	Poetry configuration
starship	Starship prompt config
stow	Stow's own config (.stowrc)
tmux	Tmux config, plugins, and themes
wezterm	WezTerm terminal config
yazi	Yazi file manager config
zellij	Zellij terminal multiplexer config
zsh	.zshrc with aliases, functions, and environment setup

Claude Code

The claude package manages Claude Code configuration as a stow package. Stow creates directory symlinks (tree folding) for agents/ and commands/, so new agents or commands created within Claude Code automatically land in the dotfiles repo.

Contents:

• CLAUDE.md — Global context loaded every session (identity, coding standards, writing preferences, workflow conventions)
• settings.json — Tool permissions (allow/deny lists) and a PostToolUse hook for auto-formatting Python with ruff
• agents/ — Task specialists (meeting minutes, data analysis, research writing, admin drafting, concept explanation)
• commands/ — Reusable slash commands (commit, review, meeting pipeline)

Git Configuration

.gitconfig includes a global gitignore (~/.gitignore_global) and references external tools (meld for diff/merge). For machine-specific overrides (email, CUDA tools, editor), create a ~/.gitconfig-local file (not stow-managed) and add to .gitconfig:

[includeIf "gitdir:~/"]
    path = ~/.gitconfig-local

Handling .DS_Store Files

.DS_Store files cause stow conflicts on macOS. The cds function handles this automatically. The repo also has a .stow-local-ignore in packages where needed.

SSH Config

SSH configuration is not stow-managed. See ~/.ssh/config directly.

Package Manager Exports

macOS (Homebrew)

brew leaves > ~/dotfiles/package_manager/.leaves.txt

Install on a new machine:

stow package_manager
xargs brew install < ~/.leaves.txt

Linux (apt)

apt-mark showmanual > ~/dotfiles/package_manager/.packages.txt

Install on a new machine:

stow package_manager
sudo apt-get update
xargs -a ~/.packages.txt sudo apt-get install -y