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.chezmoiexternal.$FORMAT

If a file called .chezmoiexternal.$FORMAT exists in the source state, it is interpreted as a list of external files and archives to be included as if they were in the source state.

$FORMAT must be one of chezmoi's supported configuration file formats, e.g. json, toml, or yaml.

.chezmoiexternal.$FORMAT is interpreted as a template. This allows different externals to be included on different machines.

Entries are indexed by target name relative to the directory of the .chezmoiexternal.$FORMAT file, and must have a type and a url field. type can be either file, archive, or git-repo. If the entry's parent directories do not already exist in the source state then chezmoi will create them as regular directories.

Entries may have the following fields:

Variable Type Default value Description
type string none External type (file, archive, or git-repo)
clone.args []string none Extra args to git clone
encrypted bool false Whether the external is encrypted
exact bool false Add exact_ attribute to directories in archive
exclude []string none Patterns to exclude from archive
executable bool false Add executable_ attribute to file
filter.command string none Command to filter contents
filter.args []string none Extra args to command to filter contents
format string autodetect Format of archive
include []string none Patterns to include from archive
pull.args []string none Extra args to git pull
refreshPeriod duration 0 Refresh period
stripComponents int 0 Number of leading directory components to strip from archives
url string none URL

The optional boolean encrypted field specifies whether the file or archive is encrypted.

If optional string filter.command and array of strings filter.args are specified, the the file or archive is filtered by piping it into the command's standard input and reading the command's standard output.

If type is file then the target is a file with the contents of url. The optional boolean field executable may be set, in which case the target file will be executable.

If type is archive then the target is a directory with the contents of the archive at url. The optional boolean field exact may be set, in which case the directory and all subdirectories will be treated as exact directories, i.e. chezmoi apply will remove entries not present in the archive. The optional integer field stripComponents will remove leading path components from the members of archive. The optional string field format sets the archive format. The supported archive formats are tar, tar.gz, tgz, tar.bz2, tbz2, xz, and zip. If format is not specified then chezmoi will guess the format using firstly the path of the URL and secondly its contents.

The optional include and exclude fields are lists of patterns specify which archive members to include or exclude respectively. Patterns match paths in the archive, not the target state. chezmoi uses the following algorithm to determine whether an archive member is included:

  1. If the archive member name matches any exclude pattern, then the archive member is excluded. In addition, if the archive member is a directory, then all contained files and sub-directories will be excluded, too (recursively).
  2. Otherwise, if the archive member name matches any include pattern, then the archive member is included.
  3. Otherwise, if only include patterns were specified then the archive member is excluded.
  4. Otherwise, if only exclude patterns were specified then the archive member is included.
  5. Otherwise, the archive member is included.o

Excluded archive members do not generate source state entries, and, if they are directories, all of their children are also excluded.

If type is git-repo then chezmoi will run git clone $URL $TARGET_NAME with the optional clone.args if the target does not exist. If the target exists, then chezmoi will run git pull with the optional pull.args to update the target.

For file and archive externals, chezmoi will cache downloaded URLs. The optional duration refreshPeriod field specifies how often chezmoi will re-download the URL. The default is zero meaning that chezmoi will never re-download unless forced. To force chezmoi to re-download URLs, pass the -R/--refresh-externals flag. Suitable refresh periods include one day (24h), one week (168h), or four weeks (672h).

Example

~/.local/share/chezmoi/.chezmoiexternal.toml
[".vim/autoload/plug.vim"]
    type = "file"
    url = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim"
    refreshPeriod = "168h"
[".oh-my-zsh"]
    type = "archive"
    url = "https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/archive/master.tar.gz"
    exact = true
    stripComponents = 1
    refreshPeriod = "168h"
[".oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting"]
    type = "archive"
    url = "https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting/archive/master.tar.gz"
    exact = true
    stripComponents = 1
    refreshPeriod = "168h"
[".oh-my-zsh/custom/themes/powerlevel10k"]
    type = "archive"
    url = "https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k/archive/v1.15.0.tar.gz"
    exact = true
    stripComponents = 1
["www/adminer/plugins"]
    type = "archive"
    url = "https://api.github.com/repos/vrana/adminer/tarball"
    refreshPeriod = "744h"
    stripComponents = 2
    include = ["*/plugins/**"]

Some more examples can be found in the user guide.

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