Dry Run Mode

--dry-run previews a deploy or update without changing anything on disk:

dotr deploy --dry-run
dotr update --dry-run

# Combine with other flags
dotr deploy --dry-run --profile work --packages nvim,bashrc
dotr deploy --dry-run --clean=false

Under --dry-run:

• No files are written. Deployments print what would be copied or symlinked instead of touching disk.
• No backups are created.
• Pre/post actions are not executed — each is printed as (Dry Run) Would execute action: <command> instead. See Actions.
• Clean mode still previews its removals — it runs by default and reports (Dry Run) Would remove file: <path> for anything it would clean up, without actually deleting it. Pass --clean=false alongside --dry-run if you don’t want to see those either.

Dry run is the safest way to check what a deploy or update will do before committing to it — especially useful after changing dest, targets, or ignore patterns, or before deploying to a machine for the first time. For comparing file contents rather than previewing an operation, see dotr diff in the CLI Reference.