Building dotfiles with GitHub Actions

[bytebone]

Hello all,

after setting up chezmoi for all the different devices I use, I'm convinced I'll stay with it for the coming future. These config files contain not only my theme for my Linux desktop, but also some (not secret, but theme-unrelated) configs for servers and work devices. I would like to share my desktop theme, based on these files, but not the entire repo with all that unrelated content.

I was thinking that something like this should be achievable with GitHub workflows. Sadly, I'm very unfamiliar with writing those, so I wanted to reach out and ask for community input on how to write this. The flow I was imagining goes like this:

• The workflow is on the main, private dotfiles repo and gets triggered on push to that repo
• When a push occurs, it spins up a VM, installs chezmoi, inits from the repos' main branch, sets up a custom .chezmoiignore file filtering out non-theme related files, and pushes all the files from the .config folder to a separate theme branch
• Once that's done, another action takes the files from this branch and pushes them onto an entirely different, public pretty-dotfiles repo, where they can be properly looked at and easily cloned by people who want to use the theme.
• In a perfect world, this process would additionally allow for a README.md in the target repo, as well as a screenshot folder, that wouldn't be touched by the workflow.

Again, in my head this doesn't sound hard to achieve, but I've been reading the GitHub Workflow documentation for a while now without getting anywhere. If anyone would have some helpful input, I'd greatly appreciate it!

[bytebone]

I've played around with this a bit more and managed to come up with a fully working solution, checking all the boxes. Should anyone come across this, admittedly edgecase, scenario, I'll publish my solution here:

The workflow file, placed in .github/workflows/ on your chezmoi repo, looks like this:

name: Publish theme to public repo
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          path: 'repo'

      - name: Build dotfiles
        run: sh repo/.build/build.sh
      
      - name: Push to public repo
        uses: cpina/[email protected]
        env: 
          SSH_DEPLOY_KEY: ${{ secrets.SSH_DEPLOY_KEY }}
        with: 
          source-directory: 'output'
          destination-github-username: 'justrainer' # replace this with your github username
          destination-repository-name: 'pretty_dotfiles' # replace this with your target repo name
          commit-message: 'Updated from private repo'
          target-directory: 'dotfiles'

It requires the setup from the "Push to another repo" documentation, as this requires SSH keys. The docs can be found here.

The build script being run by the GitHub action should be placed in the folder .build in the root of the chezmoi repo and calledbuild.sh, as well as a .chezmoiignore file. The latter just contains your regular ignore directions as to which files should be pushed to your public repo. The build script looks like this:

#! /bin/bash

echo "Current work directory: $(pwd)"

echo "Installing chezmoi"
sh -c "$(curl -fsLS get.chezmoi.io)"

echo "Applying custom chezmoiignore"
cat repo/.build/.chezmoiignore > repo/.chezmoiignore

echo "Building dotfiles"
echo "----"
echo "BUILDING:"
./bin/chezmoi -S repo/ managed
echo "IGNORING:"
./bin/chezmoi -S repo/ ignored
echo "----"

mkdir -p output/.config
./bin/chezmoi -S repo/ -D output/ -k --force apply

echo "Done."

Pushing these three files to your main online repo is all you need to do (other than creating your public repo of course). On every push to the private repo, your desired files will be pushed to your public repo into the dotfiles subdirectory. This allows you to have a README, LICENSE and image subdirectory to theme your public repo as you wish.

I somewhat doubt anyone will come across this or even find it useful. But in the rare case that someone found it helpful or interesting, I thought I'd share the solution.

[Lockszmith-GH]

I really love learning how others deal with niche situations like this.

If I understood correctly, it seems you've gone with a triggered push approach to share dotifles

Is this what is happening here? (you can use mermaid to draw)

sequenceDiagram
    actor User

    User->>+Private: push update
    Private->>+GitHubWorkflow: trigger
    GitHubWorkflow->>Public: push public stuff
    GitHubWorkflow-->>-Private: 
    Private-->>-User: done

Loading

Are there any other ways you'you thought about solving this issue and ruled out?

[bytebone]

Hey Locksmith,

thanks for the interest! What you drew looks exactly like the solution I built. The private repo triggers a workflow when pushed to, which builds and filters out the theme-related dotfiles and pushes only those to a separate public repo. Since all this happens locally on the VM used by the workflow, I don't even need to store these files on a separate branch as I described in my initial post.

I never really explored different solutions. I knew I had to store my complete chezmoi files on an online repo, since I do share them between 5 devices. I considered hosting them on a privately hosted Gitea instance at first, but that seemed to cause more trouble than it's worth. I also briefly thought about having the full and the theme-only files on the same repo in different branches, but decided I really wanted to keep the full files out of the public eye - both for a perfectionists sake, and in case some sensitive data slips through in my bash config or whatever else.

The build script will most likely change over the future as I find new scenarios that aren't covered yet, or when adjusting to new surroundings. Who knows ;)

[Lockszmith-GH]

OK, so I have came up with a different approach with a similar outcome. All managed by chezmoi, so no need to configure GitHubWorkflow, which means it will work with any git repo, even a plain git repo on the LAN.

I wonder if you can benefit from it. I'm working on sharing the code, but I wrote about it here.

[twitchel]

Late to the party, but I've just got this running.

#3863

Latest build, tested on ubuntu and macOS: https://github.com/twitchel/dotfiles/actions/runs/9882522359