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Adopt a profile on an existing machine

Already set up a machine and want to change its profile — say, turn a personal laptop into a work one, or trim a desktop down to minimal? You do not need to re-run bootstrap.sh. This tutorial switches a profile in place with dotprofile (the alias for scripts/profile.sh) and re-applies it with install.sh + update.sh.

A profile is the durable identity of a machine, persisted at ~/.config/dotfiles/profile and honored by every lifecycle script. For the conceptual model and the per-component matrix, see the Profiles reference.

Step 1 — See the current profile

Check what this machine is set to today:

dotprofile

  Active profile  personal
  ℹ set in ~/.config/dotfiles/profile

If no profile file exists yet, you will instead see that it is the default (personal) with a hint to set one. List the available profiles any time:

dotprofile list

  Available profiles: minimal personal work server
  Active: personal

dotprofile is scripts/profile.sh

The alias is shorthand for bash ~/dotfiles/scripts/profile.sh. If the alias isn't loaded yet (for example in a non-interactive shell), call the script directly.

Step 2 — Set the new profile

Persist the new profile. For example, adopt work:

dotprofile set work

  ✓ profile set to 'work'  (~/.config/dotfiles/profile)
  ℹ Apply it: zsh ~/dotfiles/install.sh  &&  bash ~/dotfiles/update.sh

set validates the name against minimal | personal | work | server (an unknown name is rejected), then writes it to ~/.config/dotfiles/profile via persist_profile. Setting the profile only records the choice — it does not yet change what is installed or linked. That is the next step.

Try it without persisting

To preview a profile's effect for a single command instead of persisting it, set the DOTFILES_PROFILE environment variable, which outranks the file: DOTFILES_PROFILE=work bash ~/dotfiles/verify.sh. A one-off --profile flag on bootstrap.sh outranks everything. Precedence is --profile flag > DOTFILES_PROFILE env > profile file > default.

Re-run the symlink installer so the set of linked dotfiles matches the new profile (adopting work/gui-tagged files, or skipping them when you downgrade):

zsh ~/dotfiles/install.sh

install.sh is idempotent and reads current_profile, creating only the links that apply to the now-active profile. Records tagged for other profiles are skipped, and any real file already at a destination is backed up to ~/.dotfiles_backup/ before a link replaces it — nothing is overwritten in place. Each link is reported as current, linked, backed up, or skip.

Step 4 — Re-run update to install the rest

Pull in the profile's packages and run the health check:

bash ~/dotfiles/update.sh

This re-runs install.sh, then upgrades Homebrew (installing any newly relevant overlay packages on the next brew bundle/drift cycle), mise runtimes, Rust, and gems, and finishes with verify.sh. Because update.sh reads current_profile, it only touches the components the new profile includes.

Switching to work?

The work-configs prompt (Maven/Yarn/Continue/Claude/AWS) and corporate certificates are part of bootstrap's work step, not update.sh. Run that setup explicitly: bash ~/dotfiles/scripts/setup_work_configs.sh. The Set up a work laptop tutorial covers the full work flow.

Step 5 — Confirm the switch

Verify the machine is healthy under the new profile and confirm the banner shows it:

bash ~/dotfiles/verify.sh

verify.sh prints Profile work (or whichever you chose) and filters its symlink and Brewfile-drift checks by that profile, so it won't flag dotfiles or packages intentionally excluded by the new profile. A quick recap:

dotstatus

The status snapshot's Profile line should now read the profile you adopted.

Done

Switching a machine's profile is just: dotprofile set <name> → zsh ~/dotfiles/install.sh → bash ~/dotfiles/update.sh. No re-bootstrap required, because every lifecycle script reads the same persisted profile.

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