Dotfiles are used to customize your system. The “dotfiles” name is derived from the configuration files in Unix-like systems that start with a dot (e.g. .bashrc and .gitconfig). For normal users, this indicates they are not regular documents, and by default they are hidden in directory listings. For power users, they are a core tool belt.

To install configuration files use stow command. GNU Stow is a symlink farm manager.

If you are running MacOS please install brew package management before. Homebrew is the missing package management for MacOS. For more information about this package management and how to install it please visit the project homepage.

So the first step after brew installation is stow installation.

brew install stow

If you are using Linux use your distribution package manager to install stow application.

Debian base distributions can use apt.

apt-get install stow

For RedHat base distribution use yum or dnf.

dnf install stow

You can stow all or selected configuration.

One

stow -t ~ bash

Or multiple

stow -t ~ bash vim zsh

Or all

stow -t ~ *

To check what the stow command will do add -n and -v options.