Chezmoi Drift

Chezmoi Drift

Use this skill as a dotfiles weekly checkup. Report first; mutate later.

Quick Start

src_dir=$(chezmoi source-path)
chezmoi status 2>&1
chezmoi unmanaged 2>&1 | grep -Ev '\.DS_Store|__pycache__|/Library/|/Caches/' | head -60

If chezmoi status is empty, managed files are in sync.

Workflow

1. Check managed-file drift

Run:

chezmoi status 2>&1

Interpret status codes:

• M = modified in target
• A = present in source but not applied
• R = present in target but removed from source

Report exact paths and codes. Do not paraphrase away the useful bits.

2. Find unmanaged files worth tracking

Run:

chezmoi unmanaged 2>&1 | grep -Ev '\.DS_Store|__pycache__|/Library/|/Caches/' | head -60

Flag only files that look intentional and reusable, especially in:

• ~/
• ~/.local/bin/
• ~/.config/
• ~/.claude/, ~/.codex/, ~/.gemini/, ~/.continue/, ~/.cursor/
• ~/.local/share/opencode/

Skip app noise, caches, session files, logs, and secrets.

3. Check script and config coverage

Run:

src_dir=$(chezmoi source-path)
comm -23 \
  /dev/null || true
  readlink "$host"/chezmoi-drift 2>/dev/null || true
done

Call out:

• missing installs
• copied directories where a symlink should exist
• stale links (broken or pointing to a moved/deleted source)

5. Detect double-installed skills (symlink + plugin)

A skill must load through one mechanism only. The expensive failure mode is a skill present both as a symlink in ~/.claude/skills/ and as an installed plugin (@). It then appears twice in every agent's skill list — wasted context and confusing UX. This has bitten this setup before (the carl-tools marketplace overlapping the live repo symlinks); keep it dead.

Use command ls, not bare ls. Carl's shells alias ls to eza, which prints name -> target for symlinks — every symlinked skill then fails to match and the check silently reports only the real directories. This under-reported 9 of 10 duplicates on gauss (2026-07-08).

comm -12 \
  /dev/null | sort -u) \
  /dev/null | grep '❯' | sed 's/^[^❯]*❯ *//; s/@.*//' | grep . | sort -u)

Any name printed is double-installed. The fix is to keep one mechanism:

• On a machine where the agent-skills repo is checked out and edited (any of Carl's boxes — gauss/euler/vesta), symlinks are canonical (live edits show instantly). Remove the plugin: claude plugin uninstall @.
• On a machine without the repo, plugin install is canonical. Remove the stray symlink instead.

Never install a carl-tools (or any agent-skills-derived) plugin on a box that already symlinks the live repo.

A marketplace with "autoUpdate": true in ~/.claude/settings.json will keep reinstating its plugins. Uninstalling the plugins is not enough — remove the marketplace too: claude plugin marketplace remove .

6. Report

Use this format:

DRIFT REPORT
============
Managed files with drift: ...
Unmanaged files worth tracking: ...
Scripts not in chezmoi: ...
Config dirs not in chezmoi: ...
Shared skill install issues: ...
Double-installed skills (symlink + plugin): ...

Then propose exact commands for anything worth fixing.

Action Rules

• Do not run chezmoi add, chezmoi re-add, chezmoi apply, rm, or git commands unless the user explicitly asks.
• Prefer chezmoi source-path over hard-coding the source repo path.
• Never add secrets or token-bearing files without converting them to a safe template first.
• For shared skills, prefer ln -sfn /skills/ over copying directories around.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: carlkibler
• Source: carlkibler/agent-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.