Install homeshick with Homebrew, zypper

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• homeshick

Project history

Repository history starts with an initial import in April 2012 and an early commit saying homeshick was mimicking homesick as closely as possible. That ancestry is visible in the naming and model: homesick popularized the idea that a home-directory repository is a castle, and homeshick reimplemented the workflow as shell scripts rather than Ruby.

The README presents the core motivation in Unix terms: configuration files define a user's working environment, and Git lets those settings travel between machines. The project stayed intentionally lightweight, requiring Bash 3 and Git 1.5, and offering shell integration for sh-like shells, csh variants, and fish.

Adoption history

homeshick became recognizable in dotfile-manager circles because it fit the common package-nerd desire to bootstrap a working shell environment on a bare machine. Its README explicitly says it installs into the user's home directory without root privileges, while the wiki documents Homebrew installation, commands, symlinking, packages, testing, and automated deployment.

Its GitHub project shows a substantial niche audience for a dotfile manager, with thousands of stars and more than a hundred forks. Tags show release milestones at 1.0.0 in 2015, v1.1.0 in 2018, v2.0.0 in 2020, and v2.0.1 in 2023.

How it is used

A typical install clones homeshick into $HOME/.homesick/repos/homeshick, sources the appropriate shell integration file, then uses commands documented in the wiki to clone, link, pull, track, refresh, and manage castles. The wiki explains that on the simplest level homeshick symlinks files and folders from managed repositories into the home directory.

The castle model is useful for splitting personal dotfiles, shell frameworks, editor configuration, and plugin collections into separate Git repositories. The README explicitly names oh-my-zsh, Emacs plugins, and Vim plugins as examples of larger frameworks or customizations that can be managed alongside personal settings.

Why package nerds care

homeshick is package-nerd significant because it lives at the intersection of dotfiles, Git, shell startup files, and reproducible personal environments. It is the sort of tool people install before anything else on a new machine so their editor, shell, aliases, and package-manager preferences can follow.

It also has the classic dotfile-tool tradeoff: very little machinery, but high trust. A symlink manager can make a workstation feel instantly familiar, and it can also overwrite or expose important files if used carelessly, which is why its wiki and package behavior matter.

Timeline

• 2012: Repository history begins with an initial import.
• 2012: Early history records intent to mimic homesick closely.
• 2015: homeshick 1.0.0 tag appears.
• 2018: v1.1.0 tag appears.
• 2020: v2.0.0 tag appears.
• 2023: v2.0.1 tag appears.

Related projects

• homesick is the closest related project because early homeshick history explicitly says it was mimicking homesick and both use the castle terminology for dotfile repositories. oh-my-zsh, Emacs plugin repositories, and Vim plugin repositories are related as common payloads a user might manage with homeshick.

Sources

• https://github.com/andsens/homeshick/tags - official tag history.
• https://github.com/andsens/homeshick/wiki - official wiki for how it works, commands, packages, symlinking, and tutorials.
• https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick - related upstream-style project for castle terminology and dotfile lineage.
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/andsens/homeshick/master/README.md - official README for motivation, requirements, install model, and shell integration.