cfgd

Status: Alpha. APIs may change.

---

• What is cfgd
• How It Works
• Quick Start
• Why cfgd exists
• Shareable Modules
• How cfgd compares
• Features
• Documentation
• Distribution

---

What is cfgd

Most dotfile managers track files. cfgd manages your entire machine. You declare packages, files, secrets, and system settings in version-controlled YAML. cfgd diffs what you want against what you have, builds a plan, and reconciles continuously. If something drifts, it is detected and corrected.

How It Works

Profiles declare your machine's desired state: packages, files, system settings. They compose via inheritance: share a common base across machines, then specialize per context. See docs/profiles.md.

             base
            ╱    ╲
        work    personal
       ╱    ╲
  laptop    devcontainer

Modules are shareable, self-contained config packages. Install someone else's dev environment or publish your own. Cross-platform package resolution picks the right manager automatically. See docs/modules.md.

Reconciliation continuously ensures machines match their declared state. Drift is detected, reported, and optionally auto-corrected. Failed actions don't abort; they're logged and skipped. See docs/reconciliation.md, or watch two machines converge through the daemon.

Quick Start

# Install via Homebrew
brew install tj-smith47/tap/cfgd

# Or via install script
curl -fsSL https://github.com/tj-smith47/cfgd/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh

# Or via cargo
cargo install cfgd

# Bring your config to a new machine in seconds
cfgd init --from [email protected]:you/machine-config.git

# Or start fresh
cfgd init

# Or let AI scan your system and generate config for you
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-...
cfgd generate

# Set up shell completions (add to your shell's rc file)
source <(cfgd completion bash)  # .bashrc
source <(cfgd completion zsh)   # .zshrc
cfgd completion fish | source   # config.fish

Why cfgd exists

I recently switched jobs, and spent the last week of my old job backing up scripts and dotfiles, parsing out company-specific info, and composing a tarball to transfer. At the new job, I spent another few days getting my new machine reconfigured. Over time I kept discovering things I'd forgotten, and things (System Settings, for one) I wished the backup had covered. It all felt manual and incomplete: I should be able to clone a repo and have my entire workstation (packages, scripts, dotfiles, system settings) feel familiar again. Better still, to keep parts of that feeling in sync between my home and work laptops.

The other inspiration was devcontainers. At my previous company I had set up custom scripts to inject dotfiles into the devcontainer so a user could replicate their dev environment once they shell in. At minimum, I wanted my full Neovim setup available in any ephemeral container without modifying the devcontainer config in every team's repository to accommodate it. I needed something that could bootstrap my config into any environment from the outside, regardless of whose repo I was working in. Plus, I had some coworkers in need of education about the superiority of vim-motions, and wanted a quick way to share my exact setup, down to the alias.

cfgd borrows from the best ideas across practices:

• Kubernetes: declarative reconciliation loop, KRM resource model
• Terraform: plan/apply workflow, state tracking, drift detection
• Puppet: continuous enforcement via daemon, module ecosystem
• Nix: reproducible machine state from a single source of truth
• Ansible: YAML-driven config management, idempotent task execution
• Kustomize: layered overrides and patches
• chezmoi: dotfile management

Shareable Modules

This is my favorite feature: a single packaged config for a tool that works anywhere.

cfgd module create my-dev-env
cfgd profile update --module community/nvim

A module declares packages with cross-platform resolution, config files, shell environment variables and aliases, and lifecycle scripts:

apiVersion: cfgd.io/v1alpha1
kind: Module
metadata:
  name: nvim
  description: Neovim editor configuration
spec:
  depends: [node, python]
  packages:
    - name: neovim
      minVersion: "0.10"
      prefer: [brew, snap]
      deny: [apt]
    - name: ripgrep
    - name: fd
      aliases:
        apt: fd-find
        dnf: fd-find
    - name: gcc
      aliases:
        apt: build-essential
        dnf: "@development-tools"
      platforms: [linux]
  files:
    - source: files/init.lua
      target: ~/.config/nvim/init.lua
    - source: files/lua
      target: ~/.config/nvim/lua
  env:
    - name: EDITOR
      value: nvim
  aliases:
    - name: v
      command: nvim
  scripts:
    postApply:
      - nvim --headless '+Lazy! sync' '+MasonToolsInstallSync' +qa

See docs/modules.md for the full spec including git file sources, registries, and dependency resolution.

How cfgd compares

	cfgd	chezmoi	Nix Home Manager	Ansible	Puppet
Focus	Full machine state	Dotfiles	Dotfiles + packages (Nix)	General automation	Server/infra state
Packages	18 managers	None	Nix only	Any (via tasks)	Any (via providers)
Drift detection	Continuous (daemon)	Manual	On rebuild	Manual	Continuous (agent)
Cross-platform resolution	Per-package manager mapping	N/A	Nix-only	Per-task conditionals	Per-OS Hiera data
Shareable modules	First-class	Templates only	Flakes	Roles (Galaxy)	Forge (server-oriented)
Team config	Policy tiers + Crossplane	N/A	Flake inputs	N/A	Puppet Enterprise
Infrastructure	Single binary, zero servers	Single binary	Nix daemon	SSH (or AWX)	PuppetServer + PuppetDB + CA
Learning curve	YAML + CLI	Go templates	Nix language	YAML + Jinja2	Puppet DSL (Ruby)

Puppet is the closest philosophical match: declarative state, continuous enforcement, module ecosystem. If that model clicked for you but standing up a JVM server and writing a Ruby-era DSL to manage your dotfiles in 2026 doesn't, cfgd is what that idea looks like rebuilt from scratch for developer workstations.

cfgd is a good fit when you want: one-liners for cross-platform machine bootstrapping, shareable dev environment modules, continuous reconciliation between machines or subscribed sources, or team config distribution with policy enforcement.

Features

For developers:

• One-command bootstrap: cfgd init --from <repo> --apply on a new machine
• AI-guided generation: cfgd generate scans your system and builds profiles/modules; MCP server for AI editor integration
• MCP server: cfgd mcp serves the CLI itself as tools, so an assistant can reconcile a machine, not only write config for one
• Authoring skills: cfgd skill install teaches your coding agent (Claude Code, Gemini, Copilot, Codex, Cursor) to author high-quality cfgd resources
• Shareable modules: cross-platform dev environment packages with dependency resolution and registries
• 18 package managers: brew, apt, dnf, pacman, cargo, npm, pipx, snap, and more, with automatic platform-aware resolution
• Secrets: SOPS/age encryption + 1Password, Bitwarden, HashiCorp Vault; secret-backed environment variables
• Tera templates: render dotfiles with variables, OS detection, custom functions
• Continuous drift detection: daemon watches for changes, auto-syncs, notifies or auto-corrects

For platform & infrastructure engineers:

• Multi-source config: publish team baselines with policy tiers (locked/required/recommended/optional)
• Kubernetes operator: CRDs for MachineConfig, ConfigPolicy, ClusterConfigPolicy, DriftAlert, BackupPolicy, Module; admission webhook; device gateway with fleet dashboard
• Node configuration: sysctl, kernel modules, containerd, kubelet, AppArmor, seccomp, certificates
• CSI driver: OCI-based module injection into pods via volumes
• Crossplane integration: TeamConfig XR for self-service team environment distribution
• kubectl plugin: kubectl cfgd debug/exec/inject/status for node inspection

For security & compliance:

• Compliance snapshots: continuous machine state capture with JSON/YAML export for Vanta, Drata, or custom integrations
• Key provisioning: declarative SSH key generation, GPG key management, and git signing configuration
• Encryption enforcement: per-file encryption requirements with SOPS/age backend validation
• Policy enforcement: locked files, required packages, encryption constraints on target paths
• Drift remediation: daemon detects and auto-corrects configuration drift with per-module policies
• Fleet visibility: device gateway aggregates compliance scores across enrolled machines

Documentation

Document	Description
Configuration	Root config (cfgd.yaml), file strategies, aliases, themes
Profiles	Profile YAML, inheritance, merge rules, variables
Modules	Module spec, cross-platform packages, dependencies, git file sources, registries
Reconciliation	Phase ordering, failure handling, state store
Packages	All package managers, skip behavior, dry-run
Templates	Tera template system, context variables, custom functions
Secrets	SOPS/age backends, 1Password, Bitwarden, Vault
System Configurators	Shell, macOS defaults, systemd, sysctl, kubelet, and more
Sources	Multi-source config, policy tiers, composition, subscriptions
Daemon	File watching, reconciliation loop, sync, notifications, service install
Operator	CRD-based machine management, device gateway, DaemonSet node agent
Team Config	Crossplane-powered team config distribution
Safety	Atomic writes, backups, rollback, apply locking, path safety
Declarative Backups	spec.backups[] snapshots, hook ordering, retention, restoring
Backup Policy	Fleet-wide backup schedules, the precedence table, scheduleOwner
CLI Reference	Complete command reference with flags and examples
Installation	Every install channel, verifying signed downloads, self-upgrade
Bootstrap	cfgd init flow, apply options, install script
AI Generate	AI-guided config generation, both MCP servers (mcp-server for authoring, mcp for driving the CLI)
Authoring Skills	cfgd skill installer, supported agent providers, choosing between generate and skills
Releasing	CI-cut release pipeline, pre-release checklist, failure recovery
Image Pack	Packing a directory into an OCI image volume, signing, pinning deployments
Multi-Tenancy	Namespace isolation and tenant boundaries for the operator
Lifecycle Scripts	run: resolution, hook phases, timeouts, interactive scripts

Distribution

In addition to publishing binaries to GitHub Releases (Linux, macOS, Windows on amd64 + arm64; FreeBSD on amd64), each release also publishes to:

Channel	Artifact
Homebrew	brew install tj-smith47/tap/cfgd
crates.io	cargo install cfgd (or cargo binstall cfgd for the pre-built binary)
AUR	yay -S cfgd (Arch Linux; builds from source)
winget	winget install --id TJSmith.cfgd
Scoop	scoop bucket add tj-smith47 https://github.com/tj-smith47/scoop-bucket; scoop install cfgd
Chocolatey	choco install cfgd
Nix	nix profile install github:tj-smith47/nix-pkgs#cfgd
deb / rpm / apk	Static-binary native packages, also mirrored to CloudSmith
GHCR	Docker images: cfgd, cfgd-operator, cfgd-csi
Helm	helm install cfgd oci://ghcr.io/tj-smith47/charts/cfgd
Krew	kubectl krew install cfgd (the kubectl plugin for node debugging and fleet inspection)
OLM	Operator bundle for OLM-managed clusters
Crossplane	function-cfgd composition function for team config distribution
MCP Registry	io.github.tj-smith47/cfgd: the cfgd mcp-server stdio server, for AI agents and editors

CI/CD integrations:

Integration	Description
cfgd Setup	GitHub Action: bootstrap a runner with a module from your config repo
cfgd Plan	GitHub Action: run cfgd plan on PRs, post the diff as a comment
GitLab CI	Includable .cfgd-ci.yml template with .cfgd-plan and .cfgd-apply jobs
Tekton	cfgd-apply Task for Tekton Pipelines

# Example: set up your dev tools on a GitHub Actions runner
- uses: tj-smith47/cfgd/ecosystem/github-actions/setup@master
  with:
    source: [email protected]:you/machine-config.git
    module: dev-tools

# Example: plan config changes on every PR, comment the diff, gate the merge
- uses: tj-smith47/cfgd/ecosystem/github-actions/plan@master
  with:
    config-dir: .
    fail-on-error: true

Modules can also be exported as DevContainer Features for injection into devcontainers:

cfgd module export my-tool --as devcontainer

Building from source:

git clone https://github.com/tj-smith47/cfgd.git && cd cfgd
cargo build --release

License

Licensed under either of

• Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.