Rootbeer

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Getting Started ​

Rootbeer is a dotfile manager that lets you define your system configuration in Lua scripts. Think chezmoi, but with the full power of a real scripting language instead of Go templates.

Installation ​

Install rootbeer and bootstrap a dotfiles repo in one command:

bash
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL rootbeer.tale.me/rb.sh)" -- init tale/dotfiles

This installs the latest nightly rb to ~/.rootbeer/bin/, clones your repo into ~/.config/rootbeer/, and you're ready to apply. Add ~/.rootbeer/bin to your PATH to use rb going forward.

To update to the latest nightly at any time:

bash
rb update

To start fresh instead of cloning an existing repo:

bash
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL rootbeer.tale.me/rb.sh)" -- init

This creates ~/.config/rootbeer/ with a starter init.lua manifest. This directory is your dotfiles repo — commit it, push it, clone it on another machine.

Private repos and SSH ​

The bootstrap clones over HTTPS by default. If your SSH keys are already set up, use --ssh:

bash
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL rootbeer.tale.me/rb.sh)" -- init --ssh tale/dotfiles

You can also pass a full git URL directly:

bash
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL rootbeer.tale.me/rb.sh)" -- init git@github.com:tale/dotfiles.git

If you bootstrap over HTTPS and want to switch to SSH later, use rb remote ssh or declare the remote in your config with rb.remote() — see Core Concepts.

Your First Config ​

Open your manifest with rb edit, or rb cd to jump into the source directory:

lua
local rb = require("rootbeer")
local zsh = require("rootbeer.zsh")

rb.file("~/.zshrc", zsh.config({
    env = {
        EDITOR = "nvim",
        LANG = "en_US.UTF-8",
    },
    aliases = {
        g = "git",
        v = "nvim",
    },
    extra = "autoload -Uz compinit && compinit",
}))

This writes a generated .zshrc to your home directory.

Applying ​

bash
# Preview what would change
rb apply -n

# Apply for real
rb apply

rb apply evaluates your manifest and writes/links files into place. Use -n (dry run) to see what would happen without touching the filesystem.

Editor Autocomplete ​

rb init automatically sets up lua-language-server so you get full autocomplete and type checking out of the box. If you need to regenerate the setup (or set it up manually), run:

bash
rb lsp

This extracts type definitions to ~/.local/share/rootbeer/typedefs/ and writes a .luarc.json in your source directory. Any editor with lua-language-server support (VS Code, Neovim, etc.) will pick up completions for all require("rootbeer.*") modules automatically.

Next Steps ​