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SETUP.md

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Setting up dotfiles-claude

Two ways to install these dotfiles, depending on whether you want to manage them as a git repo.

Option A: Clone directly into ~/.claude (recommended for contributors)

Clone the repository directly to ~/.claude. This gives you a fully git-tracked configuration that you can push changes back to.

# Back up any existing config
mv ~/.claude ~/.claude.backup

# Clone directly
git clone https://github.com/sgbett/dotfiles-claude ~/.claude

# Restore any runtime data you want to keep
cp ~/.claude.backup/.credentials.json ~/.claude/
cp ~/.claude.backup/history.jsonl ~/.claude/
cp -r ~/.claude.backup/projects ~/.claude/

Pros: Full git integration, easy to contribute changes back Cons: Must back up/restore existing runtime data manually

Option B: Use /dotfiles-setup command (recommended for users)

Clone the repository to your preferred location, then use the setup command to install components selectively.

# Clone to your repos folder
git clone https://github.com/sgbett/dotfiles-claude ~/repos/dotfiles-claude

# Open Claude Code and run the setup command
claude
/dotfiles-setup

The command will:

  1. Ask for your clone location
  2. Let you select which components to install (checkboxes)
  3. Handle collisions (replace/merge/skip)
  4. Optionally set up git tracking

Pros: Selective installation, handles existing files gracefully, preserves runtime data Cons: Requires Claude Code to be running

Vendor dependencies

Some commands and skills are symlinked from external repos in vendor/ (gitignored). After cloning, run:

./scripts/vendor-setup.sh

This clones:

To update vendors:

for repo in claude-workflow ai-software-architect spec-kit; do
  git -C vendor/$repo pull
done

What gets installed

Item Description
CLAUDE.md Personal instructions loaded into every session
SKILLS.md Skills reference documentation
NEW-PROJECT-RAILS.md Rails project setup guide
settings.json MCP server configuration
skills/ User-level skills (invoke with /skill-name)
commands/ Custom slash commands
mcp/ Custom MCP servers
playbooks/ Formalised procedures
docs/ Reference documentation
.ruby-version Ruby version (rvm)

What gets preserved

Your existing runtime data remains untouched (protected by .gitignore):

  • .credentials.json - Authentication credentials
  • history.jsonl - Command history
  • cache/ - Cached data
  • projects/ - Project-specific settings
  • plugins/ - Installed plugins
  • specs/ - Project specifications