Advanced examples: set, remove, add:*

set/remove

The set and remove directives are meant to be used together with templating in the modify scripts. For example, there might be a key binding in KDE you only want on computers were a specific program is installed. This could be accomplished by something like the following for kglobalshortcutsrc

{{if lookPath "my-fancy-program"}}
set "my-fancy-program.desktop" _k_friendly_name "My fancy program" separator="="
set "my-fancy-program.desktop" _launch "Ctrl+Shift+Y,none,my-fancy-program" separator="="
{{end}}

# Make sure the lines aren't added back into the config for all systems
# This should be outside the if statement
add:remove "my-fancy-program.desktop" _k_friendly_name
add:remove "my-fancy-program.desktop" _launch

(In this case, note that you might need to manage the .desktop file with chezmoi as well. KDE normally creates these in $HOME/.local/share/applications/.)

Similarly, remove can be used to remove entries, but be careful when readding the source files: If you blindly re-add the file on the computer where the lines are filtered out, they will get lost for all computers.

add:remove/add:hide

The directives add:remove and add:hide can be used to remove entries and hide values respectively when re-adding files from the system to the chezmoi source state.

Some use cases for this are:

• Use add:hide to prevent a password from being added back to the source state when you re-add a file with other changes. See the konversationrc example for an example of this. By using add:hide, the line will still be present in the source file, but without its value. This ensures that the keyring transform is able to find it in the source state and do its work when checking out the file on a new system.
• Use add:remove to prevent a line from entering the source state at all. This can be useful together with system specific configuration with the set directive:

  {{ if (.is_work) }}
  set "Default Applications" "x-scheme-handler/jetbrains" "jetbrains-toolbox.desktop" separator="="
  {{ end }}
  # Completely remove the line when adding back (regardless of which computer this is on).
  add:remove "Default Applications" "x-scheme-handler/jetbrains"
  

  This example for the mimeapps.list file will add a specific line only if is_work is true. The add:remove directive helps prevent that line from being added back to the source state by mistake (where it would be applied to other computers unintentionally).

NOTE: The add:hide and add:remove directives are processed as is without going through chezmoi's template engine when re-adding files. This means it won't matter if they are inside an if block, nor can you use template expressions in their arguments.

NOTE: ignore directives also result in an implicit add:remove. Again, it doesn't matter if it is inside an if block or not currently during adding of files, and any template expressions will not be expanded.

Both of these limitations may change in the future.