I have already blogged about managing KDE dotfiles with chezmoi and chezmoi_modify_manager. But what about maintaining them?

For example, one of the KDE configuration files changes, and you want to update the version managed by chezmoi.

Here’s an example where the Kate configuration file changed on the system and chezmoi detects that:

You can see the change with “chezmoi diff”:

Remember that the part with “+” is the version known by chezmoi, while the one with “-” is the version in the local system.

You now want to update the corresponding file managed by chezmoi.

The command “chezmoi re-add” won’t help because that file is handled by chezmoi_modify_manager, which splits it into two files: “modify_private_katerc” and “private_katerc.src.ini”.
The latter contains only the parts of the file we want to track, and the former is the corresponding modification script.

Moreover, “chezmoi merge” won’t help either for the same reason. Here’s what this command shows (I configured chezmoi to use the GUI program “meld” for such a command):

However, “chezmoi_modify_manager” has an option for such situations. Here’s the option to use with “chezmoi_modify_manager”:

Here’s the command and the output:

By using “chezmoi cd” and “git diff”, we can verify that the corresponding “.src.ini” file has been correctly updated (and the git repository can then be committed and pushed):

In the end, it’s easy, once you know the right option to use with “chezmoi_modify_manager”!

Enjoy your KDE dotfiles! 🙂