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dotling edit

Edit a tracked entry in your $EDITOR.

Usage

dotling edit <ENTRY>

Arguments

ArgumentDescription
<ENTRY>Source path, target path, or partial match of the entry to edit

Description

dotling edit opens a tracked entry in your preferred text editor. It accepts any identifier that uniquely matches an entry: the repo source path, the target path, or a partial name match.

Plain and template entries

For plain and template entries, the repo source file is opened directly. Changes are saved to the repo — run dotling sync to deploy them.

Encrypted entries

For encrypted entries, dotling:

  1. Decrypts the file to a secure temp file in ~/.dotling/tmp/ (mode 0600)
  2. Opens the temp file in your editor
  3. Re-encrypts the content and writes it back to the repo
  4. Securely wipes (overwrites with zeros) and deletes the temp file

Editor resolution

The editor is resolved in this order:

  1. $DOTLING_EDITOR — highest priority
  2. $VISUAL — standard Unix convention
  3. $EDITOR — standard fallback
  4. vim -> nano -> vi — hardcoded fallbacks

GUI editors (code, subl, zed, pulsar, atom) automatically get --wait appended so dotling waits for the editor to close before re-encrypting.

Examples

# Edit by target path
dotling edit ~/.ssh/config

# Edit by source path
dotling edit ssh/config

# Partial match
dotling edit zshrc

# Use a specific editor
DOTLING_EDITOR=nvim dotling edit ~/.gitconfig