---
title: Your values
description: Everything personal lives in dot.toml, your name, identities and organizations, backed up to 1Password.
---

`config/` holds choices anyone could share: which apps, which preferences.
Everything that is **yours** (your name, email, the computer's name, your
organizations) lives in one file, `dot.toml`, which git ignores. `config/`
refers to it, so a fork only has to write its own `dot.toml`.

```toml
hostname = "your-mac"
editor = "zed"
ssh_key = "GitHub"

[git]
name = "Your Name"
email = "you@example.com"

[github]
user = "your-username"
```

`dot` won't run without it.

## Create it

The installer offers three ways:

- **`w`, the wizard:** asks for each value in `dot.toml.example`; Enter keeps
  the default.
- **`r`, restore from 1Password:** on a Mac after your first one, it installs
  1Password, waits while you sign in and turn on *Settings → Developer →
  Integrate with 1Password CLI*, then downloads your backup (below).
- **`m`, by hand:** `cp dot.toml.example dot.toml`, then edit it.

Later, `dot conf edit` opens it in your editor.

## How config/ uses it

A word starting with `$` in a `config/*.conf` line is replaced by a value
from `dot.toml`:

- **A value** is `$` and its path: `$hostname`, or `$git.name` for `name`
  under `[git]`. `system hostname $hostname` becomes
  `system hostname your-mac`, and a value with spaces stays one value.
- **A collection** is `$`, a table and `.*`: `$git.identity.*` hands
  `git identities` every `[git.identity.<label>]` table, however many there
  are, including none. Each table is one identity, organization or profile.

`dot.toml.example` has the optional tables commented out, ready to copy:
extra git identities ([Git and signing](/docs/your-mac/git-and-signing)),
AWS organizations ([AWS](/docs/your-projects/accounts/aws)) and the
vault for project secrets ([Secrets](/docs/your-projects/secrets)).

## The format

A subset of TOML: `[table]` headers, `key = "value"` with double- or
single-quoted strings, and `#` comments. Numbers, booleans, arrays, inline
tables, dotted keys and multi-line strings aren't accepted; dot stops with
the file and line of anything it can't read, so the file is always valid
TOML.

## Back it up

`dot.toml` isn't in git, so it's kept in 1Password, as the Document
"dotfiles: dot.toml" tagged `dotfiles` in your personal vault:

```sh
dot conf backup     # save it (Touch ID)
dot conf restore    # get it back, e.g. on a new Mac
dot conf edit       # open it in your editor
```

`dot check` tells you when `dot.toml` changed since the last backup, without
Touch ID: it compares the file with a record of the last upload, kept in
`~/.local/state/dotfiles/`.

A Mac that hasn't restored or backed up yet doesn't replace an existing
backup, since its `dot.toml` could be the installer's defaults: restore
first, or use `dot conf backup --force`. `dot conf restore` likewise keeps a
`dot.toml` that differs from the backup unless you pass `--force`, and then
saves the old one as `dot.toml.before-restore.<date>`, a new file each time.
Neither accepts a file dot can't read.