Repos

files: renders one file from one template. A neovim configuration is a directory with a hundred files and its own history, and templating it would be absurd. It wants cloning.

repos:
  - url: https://github.com/you/nvim-config
    dest: ~/.config/nvim
    ref: main          # optional -- a branch or tag
    only: linux        # optional, like everywhere else

What apply does

State	Action
Not there	git clone --depth 1 [--branch ref]
There, and bedouin cloned it	nothing
There, and bedouin did not	adopted — never touched
Dropped from the config	the clone is deleted, if bedouin made it
url: changed	the old clone comes out, the new one goes in

Your directory stays yours

A dest that already exists and is not in bedouin’s state is adopted: it is recorded and never written to. Your hand-managed nvim config is not bedouin’s to clobber.

Present is done

A repo bedouin cloned is a no-op on later runs, the same rule as version: latest. Pulling on every apply would make plan claim a change it cannot know about without going to the network, and it would never converge.

bedouin sync is what pulls — the config repository and every declared repo, with --ff-only. What happens to your commits is your call, so a pull that cannot fast-forward is reported and the rest continue.

Bounds

dest must be under $HOME. No submodule recursion. No credential handling — it inherits whatever git setup you already have, exactly like sync.

Coexisting with chezmoi or stow

This is the seam. Move one directory at a time: point a repos: entry at it, let bedouin adopt what is already there, and delete it from the other tool when you are ready. Nothing has to happen at once.