Polka

Polka sets up your dotfiles

gem install polka

In your dotfile directory create a file called Dotfile. My Dotfile looks like this:

configure personal_file: "~/Dropbox/polka_personal.yml"

symlink ".gemrc", ".vimrc", ".zshrc", ".zsh_custom", ".vim"
symlink ".gitignore_global", as: ".gitignore"
copy ".gitconfig.erb"

Once you are done, run polka setup. Existing files will be moved to a backup dir.

You can avoid name collisions in your .dotfile directory by using the :as option.

.erb-files are parsed before they are copied: Create a personal.yml where you list your personal information that you may not want to check into your git repo (e.g. API tokens, name, email etc.):

.gitconfig:
  name: Peter Venkman
  email: peter@ghostbusters.test

In .gitconfig.erb:

[user]
  name = <%= personal['name'] %>
  email = <%= personal['email'] %>

personal.yml is expected to be in your dotfile directory and should be added to your .gitignore, ldo. Alternatively, you can configure an alternate path (see example).