dotfiles.pro

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One repo for your Windows, Ubuntu, and macOS machines ​

Four machines: a Windows + WSL gaming PC, an Ubuntu laptop, a macOS work laptop, and a personal Mac. You want the same shell, aliases, and git setup on all of them, but each differs. The gaming PC needs WSL and your Kubernetes tooling; the work Mac uses your work email and work repos; the Ubuntu laptop is your daily dev box. One repo handles all four.

All three platforms

Dotfiles Pro applies your Ubuntu, macOS, and Windows/WSL machines from one repo. macOS uses the macos role (Homebrew) in place of ubuntu, with ansible_facts.os_family guards on the shared roles. Even the docker role runs on macOS (via colima); offering more container runtimes there is on the roadmap.

The shape ​

The shape is a shared baseline with per-machine overrides, the many layout for a fleet: vars live in group_vars/ and host_vars/, and the role list is data-driven, so each machine runs its own set:

mydotfiles/
  inventory.yaml          # every machine, by hostname
  group_vars/all.yaml     # the baseline every machine gets
  host_vars/
    game-pc.yaml          # Windows + WSL
    ubuntu-laptop.yaml    # Ubuntu
    work-mac.yaml         # macOS (work)
    home-mac.yaml         # macOS (personal)
  playbook.yaml
  requirements.yml

The baseline ​

Every machine shares one group_vars/all.yaml, with the shell framework, aliases, the dotpro commands, your SSH keys, git config, and the Starship prompt identical everywhere:

yaml
---
# group_vars/all.yaml — OS-neutral roles every machine shares. The OS base
# (ubuntu/macos) is not here; the playbook applies it per host from facts.
ansible_roles_all:
  - dotpro
  - ssh
  - git
  - starship

git_config:
  user:
    name: Your Name
    email: you@personal.com

The OS base itself isn't in this shared list; each machine needs a different one. The playbook applies it per host from gathered facts (the macos role on a Mac, ubuntu elsewhere), so a new machine gets the right base with no extra config.

Per machine ​

Each machine adds to the baseline via roles_extra (its own roles, merged onto ansible_roles_all); dicts like git_config merge (the hash_behaviour = merge setting from Configuration, on by default in the example ansible.cfg), so a host overrides only the keys it cares about:

yaml
---
# host_vars/game-pc.yaml: Windows + WSL
roles_extra:
  - wsl
  - windows
  - docker
  - kubernetes
  - googlecloud
yaml
---
# host_vars/ubuntu-laptop.yaml: your daily dev box
shell: zsh # off-diagonal: zsh on Linux (defaults to bash; macOS defaults to zsh)
roles_extra:
  - docker
  - terraform
  - opentofu
yaml
---
# host_vars/work-mac.yaml: macOS, work identity (the macos base is applied
# automatically from facts; this host only adds its extra roles and identity)
roles_extra:
  - docker
  - kubernetes
  - aws
git_config:
  user:
    email: you@work.com # work email on this machine only
git_repositories:
  work-project: git@github.com:yourorg/work-project.git
yaml
---
# host_vars/home-mac.yaml: macOS, personal — no extra roles, just the shared
# baseline plus the macos base the playbook applies automatically from facts
roles_extra: []

The game-pc picks up the WSL role, wsl.conf, Windows shims, and WSLENV bridging so Windows-side Lens authenticates to GKE through WSL, plus the Windows role to manage the Windows half itself (winget apps, registry, virtual desktops, hotkeyed workspaces). The work-mac overrides only user.email and adds its work repo, so your work commits use your work address while everything else stays shared.

Running it ​

On each machine, the same command applies that machine. dotpro apply adds --limit $(hostname) for you, so it picks up that host's host_vars with no extra flag:

bash
dotpro apply

Add a machine by dropping a host_vars/<hostname>.yaml and listing it in inventory.yaml. Nothing else changes.

Next steps ​