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Alias lifecycle

This flow covers adding a new alias on one machine, applying it, syncing it to the remote, and picking it up on a second machine.

Overview

sequenceDiagram
    actor U as You (Machine A)
    participant P as pauldot
    participant R as Dotfiles repo (GitHub)
    actor M as Machine B

    U->>P: pauldot alias add ll "ls -la"
    P->>R: Appends alias to files/aliases.zsh
    P->>R: git commit (if auto_commit = true)
    P->>U: Rewrites ~/.zshrc to include new alias

    Note over U: Open a new shell — ll works ✓

    U->>P: pauldot sync
    P->>R: git push

    Note over M: Later, on Machine B

    M->>P: pauldot sync
    P->>R: git pull (new commits detected)
    P->>M: Rewrites ~/.zshrc automatically

    Note over M: Open a new shell — ll works ✓

Step by step

1. Add the alias

pauldot alias add ll "ls -la"

This appends alias ll="ls -la" to files/aliases.zsh in your dotfiles repo. If git.auto_commit = true, the change is committed immediately.

2. Use it locally

alias add rewrites ~/.zshrc automatically — no separate apply needed. Open a new shell (or source ~/.zshrc) to use the alias.

Create a reload alias

Add a reload alias to your dotfiles repo that sources ~/.zshrc, so you can run reload instead of opening a new shell every time you add an alias.

3. Push to the remote

pauldot sync

sync runs git pull --rebase then pushes any local commits. After this, the alias is in the remote repo.

4. Pull it on another machine

On Machine B:

pauldot sync

sync pulls the latest dotfiles and, when new commits are detected, rewrites ~/.zshrc automatically. Open a new shell — the alias is available.

Notes

  • pauldot alias list shows all aliases currently defined in your dotfiles.
  • If you want to remove an alias, edit files/aliases.zsh directly (pauldot edit zshrc opens it in $EDITOR), then apply and sync.
  • Aliases live in files/aliases.zsh which is sourced by every generated ~/.zshrc, regardless of profile.