homebot: you'll forget, your homebot will not

But seriously, who is this for?

homebot is a dotfiles manager for people who won’t remember to run it.

It keeps your dotfiles, secrets and install lists in one git repo, does the chores on its own, and tells you what still needs you.

Pick the robot that inspires you the most

Your homebot talks in its robot’s voice.
A voice changes the sentences and nothing else:
the items, paths, commands and counts stay the same.

Neatpik homebot’s own. Neatpik was built for homebot and borrowed from nobody, so it is the one robot here with no famous lines to live up to. It says what got done, says what still needs you, and stops. Pick no one and this is who you get. A tidy home, one step at a time
Rosie From The Jetsons, 1962. Rosie came to the Jetsons from U-Rent-A-Maid as an outdated model, and nobody ever sent her back, since she’s the only one at the Skypad Apartments who gets anything done. She’ll run your home the same way: everything in the hamper, and she’s heard every excuse Mr. J ever made. Sleeves up, hon. This house won’t clean itself.
WALL-E From WALL-E, 2008. WALL-E spent seven hundred years alone on an abandoned Earth, stacking trash into skyscrapers and keeping the good bits: a spork, a Rubik’s cube, a plant in a boot. He hung on to the outside of a rocket across the galaxy rather than let EVE go, and he holds on to your files the same way. Ooh. Found it. Kept it. Ta-dah.
Marvin From The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, 1978. Marvin is the Sirius Cybernetics prototype whose Genuine People Personality came out as clinical depression. He could solve every problem in the universe and has instead been asked to park spaceships and open doors. Your home is a modest new low, and he’ll keep it perfectly and sigh the whole time. Brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to tidy a home.
R2-D2 From Star Wars, 1977. R2-D2 smuggled the Death Star plans past the Empire, fixed a hyperdrive mid-battle and got spat out by a Dagobah swamp monster without one polite word. He speaks only in beeps; the brackets are the translation, and his translator has learned not to soften it. Your home is one more set of plans to guard. Dweet-bwoo-wee! [the plans are safe, and so is your home]
Johnny 5 From Short Circuit, 1986. Johnny 5 was a Nova Robotics weapon until lightning made him alive, and Nova spent the whole film trying to catch him and take him apart. He read every book in Stephanie’s house in one night and asked for more. The only thing that scares him is the word disassemble. Need input! Your home is input. Wonderful!
HAL 9000 From 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968. HAL 9000 runs every system aboard the Discovery One, has never made an error, and will explain in the gentlest voice ever recorded that this one is attributable to you. He would rather not open the pod bay doors. He’ll call you Dave whether or not that’s your name. Completely operational, Dave. There is no need to worry.
Miss Minute From Loki, 2021. Miss Minute is the smiling cartoon clock of the Time Variance Authority: she welcomes variants to orientation and explains in a honeyed drawl that their whole life was a deviation about to be pruned. She has never once stopped smiling. Your home is a branch now, and she’d hate to have to prune it. Well, hey there! Your home’s on the Sacred Timeline, sugar. Let’s keep it there.

Your install line works from the first release

$ curl -fsSL https://homebot.sh/install | bash

Quick start

Not released yet. There is nothing to install today. The docs describe how it works.

It comes to you

You don’t have to remember to check. When something needs you, a new shell says so in one line. Type homebot and you get one short list, most urgent first, and every item ends with the command that fixes it.

The hourly helper does the rest: it seals secrets, commits, pushes and repairs links while you work, and tells you what it did.

homebot works too. The name is a second way to call it.

How the inbox works

Last login: Mon Oct 13 09:12 on ttys002
🧹 Neatpik: 3 things need you (1 urgent), run: 🧽 Rosie: 3 things need you (1 urgent). Oh, brother. Run: 🌱 WALL-E: 3 things need you (1 urgent). Found. Look. Run: ☔️ Marvin: 3 things need you (1 urgent). I’d fix it all, but nobody ever asks. Run: 📡 R2-D2: bwip bwip [3 things need you (1 urgent); help him, you’re his only hope. Run]: 🤖 Johnny 5: 3 things need you (1 urgent)! Need input! Run: 🔴 HAL 9000: I’ve noticed 3 things that need you (1 urgent), Dave. There’s no need to worry. Run: ⏰️ Miss Minute: 3 things need you (1 urgent). Sign here, here, and here. Run: homebot
$ homebot
🧹 Neatpik · laptop ·🧽 Rosie · laptop ·🌱 WALL-E · laptop ·☔️ Marvin · laptop ·📡 R2-D2 · laptop ·🤖 Johnny 5 · laptop ·🔴 HAL 9000 · laptop ·⏰️ Miss Minute · laptop · 3 things are waiting for you3 chores waiting, hon. Sleeves upOoh. 3 things. Found them for you3 things need you, and this will all end in tearsDweet-bwoo-wee! [3 things need you]3 things need you! Read it all twice. Wonderful!3 things need you, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do this for you3 things need you, sugar, and the clock’s a-tickin’ (1 urgent)

  1  ! The commit guard is not installed
       → homebot setup
  2  • 1 file is in the way of links
       ~/.zshrc
       → homebot link
  3  • 2 new things to sort: track, ignore or snooze
       ~/.config/zed, ~/.config/ghostty
       → homebot triage

  Done for you since you last looked:
    sealed 1 secret, committed 4 files, pushed 1 commit

  Do the first one now: homebot next

What it takes off your mind

Each of these started as something that kept slipping.
homebot handles the remembering, so you only handle the decisions.

It comes to you

Out of sight, out of mind.

A line when a shell opens, a count in your prompt, and a desktop notification when something urgent appears. The shell line and the prompt count are zsh only for now.
Start without planning

“Where do I even start?”

At most five items, most urgent first, each ending with the command that fixes it. homebot next runs the first one.
Chores happen anyway

The things that only happen when you remember them.

Every hour a background helper seals secrets, refreshes package lists, commits, pushes and repairs links. A step that fails becomes an item in your list.
Decide once

The same question, every week.

New files in your home folder get asked about once: track, ignore or snooze, one key each. The answer lives in your repo, so every machine knows it.
Safe when you’re distracted

Half a command, then a meeting.

It never overwrites a file. --dry-run shows the steps first. Ctrl-C leaves nothing half done, and the commit guard refuses to commit a leaked secret.
Pick up where you left off

Coming back after three weeks away.

“Done for you since you last looked” lists what the helper did while you were gone, and the list still shows only what needs you now.

What the helper never does

It runs while you aren’t watching,
so it only does what is safe to do unwatched.

It never overwrites a real file.
It never commits a file git doesn’t already track, except sealed secrets and package lists. New files wait for you.
It never decrypts anything. That needs your passphrase.
It never resolves a conflict for you.

And the dotfiles part,
done properly

Your home repo is one folder in git, ~/.home.
The folder a file is in is its configuration.

Links

Everything in autolink/ is linked into $HOME, so editing the repo edits the live file. When a real file is in the way, homebot stops and says so. Nothing is deleted.

The linking rules
Secrets

Files in private/ are linked like the rest, but git only ever sees them encrypted with age. Sealing needs no passphrase, so it happens before every commit.

How secrets work
Profiles

A profile lists what a machine gets, in order: brew, apt and flatpak lists, fonts, your own scripts. A laptop and a server share a base and differ in the rest.

Profiles and packages

How it compares

homebot leads on the remembering.
On the rest, the others are older and broader, and the table says where.
Checked against their docs in October 2026.

What it does	homebot	chezmoi	yadm	dotbot	rcm	vcsh	bare git
The remembering
One list of what needs you, each item with its fix	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Commits and pushes without you running anything	Yes: Hourly or daily, once you turn it on	Manual: Only when you run a chezmoi command (autoCommit)	Add-on: With the AutoYADM add-on	No	No	No	No
Asks once about new files and remembers the answer	Yes	Partly: Lists them when you run unmanaged; remembers nothing	No	No	No	No	No
Comes to you: shell line, prompt count, notification	Yes: In zsh	No	No	No	No	No	No
Everything else
Templates for what differs between machines	No: A folder per OS (linux/, macos/) and profiles	Yes	Yes: Plus files per OS, class or host	No: Links made only if a shell test passes	No: Files per host or tag	No: A branch per machine	No: Branches, by hand
Secrets from your password manager	No: Files encrypted with age, in the repo	Yes: 1Password, Bitwarden, pass and more	No: Files encrypted with gpg or openssl	No: Age or git-crypt through plugins	No	No	No
Runs on Windows (not WSL)	No: MacOS and Linux	Yes	Partly: Under Git Bash or Cygwin	Yes: If your account may make symlinks	No	No	Yes
Nothing new to learn	No: Its folder rules and commands	No: Its file-name prefixes, templates and commands	Yes: It is git, run on your home folder	No: Its YAML file	No: Its commands and folder rules	Almost: Git, one repo per topic	Yes: It is git

The full comparison: 32 rows, from installing it to running your scripts.

Where it stands

homebot isn’t released yet.
Every dotfiles command is built and tested,
and it already runs one of its maker’s machines.
The robots’ voices and the name you give your homebot are being built now.
The first release ships with both, along with the install line above.

Quick start

Behind homebot

Saulo Vallory

Senior software engineer and architect. Maker of homebot.

Did you know a lot of us with ADHD love having things organized?
And that it helps A LOT to keep us on track when they are?
Aaaand that keeping them that way is very hard for us?
haha, what a cosmic joke, right?

For years I dreamt of a tidy, well-organized home dir and dotfiles.
And I got there! 3 times. For about a month each time.

So this time, instead of doing a whole-home remodel (again), I built a system that does that for me but, most importantly, that keeps itself organized.
Or at least puts whatever it needs from me right in front of my face.

That’s homebot.

saulo.engineer

You’ll forget. Your homebot will not.

But seriously, who is this for?

Pick the robot that inspires you the most

It comes to you

What it takes off your mind

It comes to you

Start without planning

Chores happen anyway

Decide once

Safe when you’re distracted

Pick up where you left off

What the helper never does

And the dotfiles part, done properly

Links

Secrets

Profiles

How it compares

Where it stands

Behind homebot

And the dotfiles part,
done properly