CachyOS Dotfiles

A declarative, reproducible CachyOS workstation managed with chezmoi: system packages, COSMIC desktop applications, developer toolchains, shell/editor configuration, and root-level system services.

Architecture, enforcement, agentic-system, and security documentation lives in AGENTS.md (the binding agent contract) and in the long-form posts on Dev Journal Blogs.

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Fresh Machine Bootstrap

Prerequisites

1. Install CachyOS with a working internet connection (git and chezmoi ship by default).
2. Have your SSH private key ready, or generate a new one.

SSH Key Restoration

Only private_dot_ssh/config is tracked; private keys are excluded by .gitignore and must be restored separately.

Option A — copy from backup:

mkdir -p ~/.ssh; and chmod 700 ~/.ssh
cp /path/to/backup/id_ed25519 ~/.ssh/
cp /path/to/backup/id_ed25519.pub ~/.ssh/
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
chmod 644 ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

Option B — generate a new key (then add the public key to GitHub/GitLab/servers):

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com" -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

Master Bootstrap Command

chezmoi init --apply https://github.com/flasheddy/dotfiles.git   # replace with your repo URL

This copies all dotfiles to ~/.config/, ~/.ssh/config, ~/.gitconfig, etc., then runs the repository's run_onchange lifecycle hooks in order: packages → toolchains → system services.

Note: The first run can take a long time — AUR builds, Flatpak downloads, and toolchain bootstrapping all happen sequentially. Keep the machine plugged in and online.

Post-Install Checks

sudo reboot                              # reboot into COSMIC
sudo systemctl status keyd               # verify keyd
sudo keyd list-keys
rustup show; uv --version; bun --version; go version
printf '%s\n' $PATH                      # toolchain bins on PATH
chezmoi status                           # no unexpected drift
test -f ~/.config/goose/permission.yaml; or install -m 600 -D ~/.local/share/chezmoi/dot_config/goose/private_permission.yaml ~/.config/goose/permission.yaml   # seed goose posture if absent (runtime-owned, not chezmoi-managed)

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Daily Workflow & Maintenance Cheat Sheet

Fish Abbreviations

Defined in ~/.config/fish/config.fish:

Abbreviation	Expands To	Purpose
cm	cd ~/.local/share/chezmoi	jump to the chezmoi source directory (native cd — no wrapper process)
cma	chezmoi apply	apply source changes to the live system
cms	chezmoi status	show pending changes
jl	jless	read-only JSON pager with tree folding & vi keybindings
tsv	csvlens -t	read-only column-aligned TSV/dataset viewer

Document Readers

Document review is separated from editing to prevent accidental buffer changes. Markdown and dataset reader workflow bifurcates based on complexity:

Reader	Target File Types	Invocation	Highlights
zed	Complex Markdown (SDD plans, tables)	zed <file>	GUI sidecar previewer. Bypasses terminal width limits; soft-wraps dense cells.
bat	Simple Markdown (inline CLI)	bat <file>	Fast, non-interactive syntax highlighting for standard CLI reads.
jless	JSON	jl	Interactive pager with tree folding and Helix/vi keybindings.
csvlens	TSV, Anki exports & datasets	tsv	Column-aligned viewer (-t = tab-separated).

Agent Turn Checkpoint Handoff

handoff-copy (Fish function → ~/.config/fish/functions/handoff-copy.fish) snapshots the latest Goose session for a turn handoff: it streams the latest assistant text block, session ID, git context (branch, commit, working-tree status), and plan path into a Markdown buffer, then copies it to the Wayland clipboard via wl-copy for pasting into Gemini Chat.

Dictation

Fully local speech-to-text: dictate records from the default PipeWire source, transcribes with whisper.cpp on the CPU, and types the result into the focused window via dotool (/dev/uinput — no X11 and no compositor-specific protocol).

One-time model fetch. The ggml weights are data, not a package, and are deliberately untracked. huggingface.co is unreachable from some networks; hf-mirror.com serves the identical blob — verify the hash before trusting it:

set -l dir ~/.local/share/whisper/models
mkdir -p $dir
curl -fL -o $dir/ggml-base.en.bin \
    https://hf-mirror.com/ggerganov/whisper.cpp/resolve/main/ggml-base.en.bin
sha256sum $dir/ggml-base.en.bin
# must print a03779c86df3323075f5e796cb2ce5029f00ec8869eee3fdfb897afe36c6d002
# (147,964,211 bytes)

Shortcut. COSMIC settings are intentionally not chezmoi-managed, so bind it once by hand: Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts → Custom Shortcuts → add dictate toggle on Super+Alt+D. (Ctrl+Space is left alone — fcitx5 owns it for input-method switching.)

Usage

Command	Effect
dictate toggle	start recording; press again to stop, transcribe and type
dictate start / dictate stop	explicit start / stop-and-type
dictate last	re-transcribe the most recent recording
dictate status	report whether a recording is in progress
dictate last --print	print the transcript instead of typing it
dictate last --copy	copy the transcript to the clipboard instead of typing
dictate --model small.en	use another model (fetch ggml-small.en.bin the same way)

Notes:

• Runtime state lives in $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/dictate/ (tmpfs) — nothing survives a reboot.
• Recording is 16 kHz mono s16, whisper's native format, so there is no resampling.
• The packaged whisper-cpp is a CPU build; the RTX 5060 stays idle. GPU inference would need a from-source CUDA build (ggml-cuda is packaged, but the Blackwell/sm_120 path is untested here).
• Silent or sub-0.4 s recordings are discarded without typing anything.

PATH Symlinks

Managed via dot_local/bin/symlink_* (tracked in toolchains/local-bin.txt): hx → /usr/bin/helix, zed → ~/.local/zed.app/bin/zed.

Editing Files

Flow A — via the source directory (safest; chezmoi always knows about the changes):

cm
hx dot_config/fish/config.fish
cma

Flow B — edit the live file directly:

hx ~/.config/fish/config.fish
chezmoi re-add ~/.config/fish/config.fish   # mandatory before applying
cma

⚠️ Warning: cma without chezmoi re-add overwrites your live edits with the source-tree version. Always re-add first when editing live files.

Adding New Software

System / AUR package: append to the manifest matching its origin, then cma — hook 00 detects the changed checksum and installs it (native via pacman, AUR via paru/yay).

• Native (official CachyOS/Arch repos) → packages/00-system-base.txt (core/drivers/networking), 10-desktop-environment.txt (desktop/fonts/GUI), 20-dev-stacks.txt (compilers/runtimes/dev tools), or 30-terminal-utilities.txt (terminals/editors/CLI).
• AUR-only → archive/pacman-foreign.txt. Never add AUR names to packages/*.txt: they feed pacman -S directly, and an unknown name aborts the whole run (AGENTS.md §1.3). Verify origin: pacman -Si <pkg> (native) vs paru -Si <pkg> (AUR).

Language CLI tool: append to toolchains/uv.txt (Python), cargo.txt (Rust), bun.txt (JS/TS), or go.txt (Go), then cma — hook 10 installs it.

Updating Standalone Toolchains

The primary update workflow is the aup Fish function (dot_config/fish/functions/aup.fish): per-stage isolation (one failure never aborts the rest), missing tools reported as SKIP (not installed), a 2-hour per-stage success cache in ~/.cache/aup/ (user-local, unmanaged; --force bypasses), and an OK/SKIP/FAIL summary. Exits 1 if any stage failed. The goose stage additionally HEAD-probes the upstream stable release asset and skips the re-download while its ETag/Last-Modified fingerprint is unchanged (~/.cache/aup/goose.asset).

Stage	Command	Notes
system	cachy-update	pacman + AUR via arch-update (prompts for sudo)
rustup	rustup update	Rust toolchain manager
cargo	cargo install-update -a	all cargo-installed crates
uv-self	uv self update	uv itself
uv-tools	uv tool upgrade --all	all uv-managed Python tools
bun-self	bun upgrade	bun itself
bun-globals	bun update --global --latest	global npm packages, no cd needed
go	gup update	all go installed binaries
tldr	tldr --update	tldr page cache
goose	goose update	goose CLI self-update (stable channel); skipped while the upstream stable asset is unchanged (HEAD probe, no download)

Flag	Effect
(none)	run the system stage and all toolchain stages
-t, --toolchains (alias --no-sys)	skip the system stage — retry toolchains only
-s, --sys-only	run only the system stage
-f, --force	ignore the success cache and re-run every stage
-h, --help	show usage

Manual per-manager equivalents (debugging fallback, or single-manager updates): rustup update + cargo install-update -a · uv self update + uv tool upgrade --all · bun upgrade + bun update --global --latest · gup update · tldr --update · goose update.

Modifying Root Settings

cm
hx system/keyd/default.conf
cma    # hook 20 deploys to /etc/keyd/default.conf and restarts keyd.service

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Agentic System Management (Goose / AI Agents)

This workstation is maintained with AI agents (e.g. Goose) working directly in the chezmoi source directory: drift audits, config edits, package/toolchain manifest maintenance, hook updates — always under strict operating rules.

The binding contract for all agents is AGENTS.md. Point any agent at it before letting it touch this repository or the live system. It carries the chezmoi execution model (§1–§2), the repository enforcement and verification gates (§1.4), the goose configuration map (§1.5), the refinement/maintenance protocol and operator prompts (§2.5), and the offline goose-docs root (§2.11).

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Safety & Troubleshooting

Understanding chezmoi diff

chezmoi diff compares generated target state with live destination files, so it includes source changes that have not yet been applied when they affect managed targets. Use it with chezmoi status; the source of truth remains ~/.local/share/chezmoi. If you edited a live file and want to keep it, run chezmoi re-add <file> before applying.

Testing Templates Before Push

All run_onchange_*.sh.tmpl files use Go templates for checksums. Render-test before committing; bash -n intentionally invokes the rendered hooks' declared shell for syntax validation:

cd ~/.local/share/chezmoi
for f in run_onchange_*.sh.tmpl
    chezmoi execute-template < "$f" | bash -n
    or echo "FAIL: $f"
end

Re-Running a Single Hook

run_onchange_ hooks only execute when their rendered content changes. To force one manually:

chezmoi execute-template < run_onchange_after_20-setup-system.sh.tmpl | bash

Or temporarily rename the file to run_once_after_..., apply, then rename it back.

Recovering From a Bad Apply

1. Fix the manifest/template that caused the failure.
2. Re-run cma.
3. If needed, run the rendered hook manually with bash to see the exact error.

Private Keys

This repository intentionally does not track SSH private keys. If git status ever shows an untracked key in private_dot_ssh/, do not stage it — the directory is protected by private_dot_ssh/.gitignore.

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License

Personal dotfiles. Use at your own risk.