Actions

Actions are shell commands run around a package’s deployment — useful for installing dependencies, reloading a service, fixing permissions, or anything else that isn’t just “put this file here.”

[packages.nvim]
src = "dotfiles/nvim"
dest = "~/.config/nvim/"

pre_actions = ["mkdir -p ~/.local/share/nvim"]
post_actions = ["nvim --headless +PluginInstall +qall"]

• pre_actions run before the package’s files are copied/symlinked.
• post_actions run after.
• Both are lists — multiple actions run in order, each waiting for the previous one to finish.

Execution details

• Each action string is compiled through Tera first, so {{ variable }} interpolation works exactly like in file templates.
• Actions run via $SHELL -c "<action>", falling back to /bin/sh if $SHELL isn’t set.
• The working directory is the repository root (the directory containing config.toml), not the package’s src/dest.
• If an action exits non-zero, the whole deploy/update operation fails immediately — later actions and the rest of that package’s deployment do not run, unless --ignore-errors was passed (which moves on to the next package, not the next action within a failed one).

[packages.aws]
src = "dotfiles/aws"
dest = "~/.aws/"
variables = { PROFILE = "default" }
pre_actions = ["echo 'Using AWS profile: {{ PROFILE }}'"]

Skipping actions

dotr deploy (and dotr packages deploy) accept flags to skip actions for that invocation without editing config.toml:

# Skip both pre- and post-actions
dotr deploy --skip-actions

# Skip only pre-actions
dotr deploy --skip-pre-actions

# Skip only post-actions
dotr deploy --skip-post-actions

This is useful when actions are expensive (e.g. reinstalling plugins) and you only want to sync files, or when debugging a failing action by first confirming the file deployment itself is fine.

Dry run

Under --dry-run, actions are not executed — each one is printed as (Dry Run) Would execute action: <command> instead. See Dry Run Mode.