Installation¶

Prerequisites¶

tidydots is written in Go. You need Go 1.25 or later installed on your system.

To check your Go version:

go version

If you do not have Go installed, follow the official Go installation guide for your platform.

Install with `go install`¶

The simplest way to install tidydots is with go install:

go install github.com/antoinegs/tidydots/cmd/tidydots@latest

This downloads, compiles, and installs the tidydots binary into your $GOPATH/bin directory (usually ~/go/bin).

Tip

Make sure $GOPATH/bin is in your PATH. You can add this to your shell profile:

export PATH="$PATH:$(go env GOPATH)/bin"

Build from source¶

If you prefer to build from source, or want to contribute to the project:

git clone https://github.com/antoinegs/tidydots.git
cd tidydots
go build ./cmd/tidydots

This produces a tidydots binary in the current directory. You can move it to a directory on your PATH:

# Linux / macOS
sudo mv tidydots /usr/local/bin/

# Or keep it local
mv tidydots ~/go/bin/

Verify the installation¶

Run the help command to confirm tidydots is installed and accessible:

tidydots --help

You should see output similar to:

tidydots is a cross-platform tool for managing dotfiles and configurations.
It supports backup and restore operations using symlinks, with support for
both Windows and Linux systems.

Configuration is stored in two places:
  ~/.config/tidydots/config.yaml  - Points to your configurations repo
  <repo>/tidydots.yaml            - Defines paths to manage

Run 'tidydots init <path>' to set up the app configuration.
Run without arguments to start the interactive TUI.

Usage:
  tidydots [command]

Available Commands:
  backup        Backup configurations from target locations
  completion    Generate the autocompletion script for the specified shell
  help          Help about any command
  init          Initialize app configuration
  install       Install packages using configured package managers
  list          List all configured paths
  list-packages List all configured packages
  restore       Restore configurations by creating symlinks

Flags:
  -d, --dir string   Override configurations directory (ignores app config)
  -n, --dry-run      Show what would be done without making changes
  -h, --help         help for tidydots
  -o, --os string    Override OS detection (linux or windows)
  -v, --verbose      Enable verbose output

Supported platforms¶

tidydots works on:

Linux -- All major distributions (Arch, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.)
Windows -- With symlink/junction support

Next steps¶

Once installed, head to the Quick Start guide to set up your first dotfiles repository with tidydots.