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.chezmoiexternal.$FORMAT{,.tmpl}

If a file called .chezmoiexternal.$FORMAT (with an optional .tmpl extension) exists anywhere in the source state (either ~/.local/share/chezmoi or directory defined inside .chezmoiroot), it is interpreted as a list of external files and archives to be included as if they were in the source state. See also .chezmoiexternals/ directories.

$FORMAT must be one of chezmoi's supported configuration file formats.

Info

Chezmoi supports multiple file $FORMATs for configuration and data: JSON, JSONC, TOML, and YAML.

.chezmoiexternal.$FORMAT is interpreted as a template, whether or not it has a .tmpl extension. This allows different externals to be included on different machines.

If a .chezmoiexternal.$FORMAT file is located in an ignored directory (one listed in .chezmoiignore), all entries within the file are also ignored.

Entries are indexed by target name relative to the directory of the .chezmoiexternal.$FORMAT file, and must have a type and a url and/or a urls field. type can be either file, archive, archive-file, 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, archive-file, or git-repo)
decompress string none Decompression for file
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
private bool false Add private_ attribute to file
readonly bool false Add readonly_ attribute to file
format string autodetect Format of archive
path string none Path to file in archive
include []string none Patterns to include from archive
refreshPeriod duration 0 Refresh period
stripComponents int 0 Number of leading directory components to strip from archives
url string none URL
urls []string none Extra URLs to try, in order
checksum.sha256 string none Expected SHA256 checksum of data
checksum.sha384 string none Expected SHA384 checksum of data
checksum.sha512 string none Expected SHA512 checksum of data
checksum.size int none Expected size of data
clone.args []string none Extra args to git clone
filter.command string none Command to filter contents
filter.args []string none Extra args to command to filter contents
pull.args []string none Extra args to git pull
archive.extractAppleDouble bool false If true, AppleDouble files are extracted

url must be an https://, http://, or file:// URL. If urls is specified then they are tried in order and the first URL that succeeds is used.

If any of the optional checksum.sha256, checksum.sha384, or checksum.sha512 fields are set, chezmoi will verify that the downloaded data has the given checksum.

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

The optional string decompress specifies how the file should be decompressed. Supported compression formats are bzip2, gzip, xz, and zstd. Note the .rar and .zip files are archives and you must use the archive-file type to extract a single file from a .rar or .zip archive.

If optional string filter.command and array of strings filter.args are specified, 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, .tar.zst, and zip. If format is not specified then chezmoi will guess the format using firstly the path of the URL and secondly its contents.

When type is archive or archive-file, the optional setting archive.extractAppleDouble controls whether AppleDouble files are extracted. It is false by default, so AppleDouble files will not be extracted.

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.

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

If type is archive-file then the target is a file or symlink with the contents of the entry path in the archive at url. The optional integer field stripComponents will remove leading path components from the members of the archive before comparing them with path. The behavior of format is the same as for archive. If executable is true then chezmoi will set the executable bits on the target file, even if they are not set in the archive.

Info

Be sure to check that you have the correct path for the file in your archive. You can use your archive tooling to check for the correct paths. For example:

$ tar tzf eza_x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
./eza
$ tar tzf zellij-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz
zellij

Notice how path = "zellij" in the configuration does not include a leading ./.

~/.local/share/chezmoi/.chezmoiexternal.toml
[".local/bin/zellij"]
    type = "archive-file"
    url = {{ gitHubLatestReleaseAssetURL "zellij-org/zellij" "zellij-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz" | quote }}
    executable = true
    path = "zellij"
[".local/bin/eza"]
    type = "archive-file"
    url = {{ gitHubLatestReleaseAssetURL "eza-community/eza" "eza_x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz" | quote }}
    executable = true
    path = "./eza"

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
[".local/bin/age"]
    type = "archive-file"
    url = "https://github.com/FiloSottile/age/releases/download/v1.1.1/age-v1.1.1-{{ .chezmoi.os }}-{{ .chezmoi.arch }}.tar.gz"
    path = "age/age"
["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.

Info

Externals may be set up with a private Git repository. This must be done with an SSH URL. The SSH key should be configured in a before_ script; and possible errors can be avoided by using stat:

~/.local/share/chezmoi/.chezmoiexternal.toml
{{ if stat (joinPath .chezmoi.homeDir ".ssh" "id_rsa") }}
[".path/to/private/repo"]
type = "git-repo"
url = "git@private.com:org/repo.git"
{{ end }}