Files, rc blocks & PATH

Managed files

files:
  - src: templates/gitconfig.j2
    dest: ~/.gitconfig
    mode: "0644"           # optional

src: resolves against the directory holding bedouin.yaml, not your working directory, and may not escape it. plan checks the source exists — a plan naming a template that is not there is not a prediction, it is a promise apply cannot keep.

A file already at dest is backed up before the first write, to <dest>.bedouin-bak, and given back if you later remove the entry. Bedouin refuses to write through a symlink: that would put content somewhere the config does not name.

Files under ~/.ssh and ~/.gnupg default to mode 0600.

rc blocks

packages:
  - name: zellij
    from: cargo
    rc:
      - file: "{{ shell.rc_dir }}/70-zellij.zsh"
        content: |
          eval "$(zellij setup --generate-auto-start zsh)"

Content is written between sentinels:

# >>> bedouin: zellij >>>
eval "$(zellij setup --generate-auto-start zsh)"
# <<< bedouin: zellij <<<

Bedouin owns blocks, never files

You can point file: at ~/.zshrc itself. Bedouin will insert its block and leave everything else in your file alone — and two packages can write into one drop-in file without either losing its block.

Two rules that keep this safe: rendered content containing a sentinel line is a render-time error, and a block opened but never closed is a hard error rather than a guess about where it ended.

PATH

packages:
  - name: zellij
    path: ["{{ home }}/.cargo/bin"]

PATH is never string-edited. Bedouin renders exactly one file, {rc_dir}/00-bedouin-path.{ext}, from the structured entries across every package — so provenance and removal are automatic. Drop the package and its entry goes with it.

Per shell:

Shell	Line
zsh, bash	export PATH="<dir>:$PATH"
fish	fish_add_path <dir>

The drop-in directory

Bedouin creates ~/.zshrc.d (or .bashrc.d, or fish’s conf.d) and adds a block to your rc file that sources it. Both appear as plan items — + dir and + rc — before anything is created.

For zsh that block also puts the completions directory on fpath, because fpath has to be set before compinit runs.