Documentation

Templates

Customize config files per machine with variables and conditionals

Overview

Templates let you maintain a single config file that adapts to each machine. Variable substitution and conditionals are evaluated during pull, so each machine gets a tailored version of the file.

Template rendering only applies to non-encrypted config files. Encrypted files are restored as-is.

Marking Files as Templates

Terminal

configsync add config ~/.gitconfig --template

The --template flag tells ConfigSync to process the file through the template engine during pull.

Variable Substitution

Use double curly braces to insert variables. These built-in variables are always available:

Variable	Description
{{platform}}	Operating system: darwin, linux, or win32
{{hostname}}	Machine hostname
{{arch}}	CPU architecture: arm64, x64, etc.
{{home}}	Home directory path
{{vars.key}}	Custom machine or profile variable

~/.gitconfig (template)

[user]

name = {{vars.git_name}}

email = {{vars.git_email}}

Conditionals

Use {{#if ...}} blocks for platform-specific or context-specific sections.

~/.zshrc (template)

export HOMEBREW_PREFIX=/opt/homebrew

export HOMEBREW_PREFIX=/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew

The {{#unless ...}} block is the inverse of {{#if ...}}:

Example

alias ll="ls -la"

Tag Checks

Use the contains operator to check machine tags:

~/.zshrc (template)

source ~/.work-aliases

export CORP_PROXY=http://proxy.corp:8080

Operators

Template conditionals support the following operators:

== — equality comparison
!= — inequality comparison
contains — check if a tag is present (used with tags)

Variable Resolution

The template context is built from machine variables and profile variables. When both define the same key, profile variables take priority.

Set machine-level defaults with machine var set, then override per-context with profile set-var.