--- title: My tips for maintaining dotfiles in source control |... description: Keeping configuration files in version control has always been an attractive option. But doing so naively is fraught. Too many programs assume it's safe to... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/my-tips-for-maintaining-dotfiles-in-source-control-opensource-com-0epxvl7ck twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: My tips for maintaining dotfiles in source control | Opensource.com | daily.dev og:description: Keeping configuration files in version control has always been an attractive option. But doing so naively is fraught. Too many programs assume it's safe to... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/my-tips-for-maintaining-dotfiles-in-source-control-opensource-com-0epxvl7ck og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/0EpxVl7Ck.png og:image:alt: My tips for maintaining dotfiles in source control | Opensource.com og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # My tips for maintaining dotfiles in source control | Opensource.com **[Open Source Way](https://daily.dev/sources/oss)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Keeping configuration files in version control has always been an attractive option. But doing so naively is fraught. Too many programs assume it's safe to keep secrets there. It's also the location of folders like ~/Downloads and ~/Pictures that should probably not be versioned. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: --- Tags: [#dotfiles](https://daily.dev/tags/dotfiles), [#general-programming](https://daily.dev/tags/general-programming) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/my-tips-for-maintaining-dotfiles-in-source-control-opensource-com-0epxvl7ck) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"My tips for maintaining dotfiles in source control | Opensource.com","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/my-tips-for-maintaining-dotfiles-in-source-control-opensource-com-0epxvl7ck","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/my-tips-for-maintaining-dotfiles-in-source-control-opensource-com-0epxvl7ck"},"datePublished":"2022-02-08T08:20:29.254Z","dateModified":"2026-10-14T02:32:55.721Z","description":"Keeping configuration files in version control has always been an attractive option. But doing so naively is fraught. Too many programs assume it's safe to...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/fcfb0516cb337f592c7a786f3d87d2d2","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/fcfb0516cb337f592c7a786f3d87d2d2","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Open Source Way","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Open Source Way","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/5b0ebeb91c344b78a2a92b8bc5956b97","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/oss"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/my-tips-for-maintaining-dotfiles-in-source-control-opensource-com-0epxvl7ck","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"dotfiles,general-programming","timeRequired":"PT3M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Open Source Way","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/oss"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"My tips for maintaining dotfiles in source control | Opensource.com"}]} ```