Use on demand to reconcile a Mac's GUI-changed settings into version control — when the user says "reconcile my mac defaults", "capture my macOS settings", or after they've changed System Settings and want the keepers tracked. Drives homedir-manager's `defaults` verb (capture/drift/apply) against a versioned desired-state file.
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See how to installReview the instructions the agent will receive before you install.
Lets the user drive their Mac through the GUI like a normal person, then fold the settings worth keeping into a version-controlled file. The judgment — signal vs. noise — is your job; the tool just reads, diffs, and writes the macOS preferences (CFPreferences) system.
~/.config/macos-defaults/)desired.tsv — the tracked settings: domain⇥key⇥type⇥value, sorted. Scalars only
(bool/int/float/string). This is both what gets applied and the baseline drift diffs against.watched-domains — one domain per line; the domains drift scans for new settings.noise-deny — glob patterns (matched against key names) that drift and whole-domain
capture ignore (window frames, recents, counters, timestamps).When the user asks to reconcile (after they've changed settings in the GUI):
See what changed:
homedir-manager defaults drift ~/.config/macos-defaults/desired.tsv \
--watched ~/.config/macos-defaults/watched-domains \
--noise ~/.config/macos-defaults/noise-deny
DRIFT <domain> <key> current=… desired=… — a tracked setting whose live value changed.NEW <domain> <key> current=… — a setting they changed that isn't tracked yet.Triage each line. Keep deliberate preferences; drop noise. A setting is signal if a
person would knowingly choose it (com.apple.dock autohide, …finder ShowPathbar). It's
noise if it's machine state: window positions, recent-item lists, counters, timestamps,
last-opened paths, UUIDs. When unsure, lean toward not tracking it — and if a noise pattern
would have caught it, add that pattern to noise-deny instead of rejecting it one-off.
Fold keepers into desired.tsv with correct types read live:
homedir-manager defaults capture com.apple.dock autohide >> ~/.config/macos-defaults/desired.tsv
Then keep the file sorted (sort -o). For a DRIFT (changed tracked value), update the
existing line instead of appending a duplicate.
Commit the content repo. Other machines pick it up on git pull.
apply writes the tracked settings into the live preferences and restarts Dock/Finder/SystemUIServer:
homedir-manager defaults apply ~/.config/macos-defaults/desired.tsv
Only run this when the user wants that machine to match the tracked state — it changes their live settings. Some settings need a logout to fully take effect.
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Use when adding, changing, deploying, onboarding, or auditing homedir-manager content repos — the marker-based symlink deployment system that manages dotfiles and config across your machines. Covers the update workflow, the manifest, OS-splitting, secrets, new-machine onboarding, and the audit process.
The English summary is being prepared. Showing the original description.