Interactive mode

dothaven is scriptable first, but on a terminal it gets out of your way with interactive prompts. Every interactive flow is opt-in by context: it runs only when both stdin and stdout are a terminal. Pipe the output, redirect it, or run it in CI and the exact same command stays non-interactive — so automation is never surprised by a prompt.

The `tui` launcher

dothaven tui opens a menu and dispatches to the action you pick:

  dothaven
  pick an action
  > Set up this machine from chezmoi (apply)
    Back up configs
    Export to chezmoi (age-encrypted)
    Restore from the latest backup
    Check setup (chezmoi + age)
    Status of the latest backup
    Quit

Each choice runs the matching command with its defaults, so the per-command interactive flow below takes over. The first entry runs migrate — the clean-machine path — so the menu leads with what a fresh laptop needs. Off a terminal, tui exits with an error rather than hanging.

Interactive-when-TTY commands

You don’t need the tui menu — the commands themselves become interactive:

Command	On a terminal, with no relevant flags
`backup`	Opens a category picker (“what to back up”)
`chezmoi-export`	Opens the picker (config categories + the `brew`/`packages` groups)
`restore`	Resolves each conflict interactively (overwrite / skip / diff / all)
`init`	Offers to run the safe setup steps (install chezmoi, init the source repo)

Category picker

backup and chezmoi-export with no --only/--skip show a multi-select of categories, with a count and a 🔒 marker on the ones that hold secrets:

  What to back up
  space toggles · enter confirms
  > [x] shell      6
    [x] git        4
    [ ] cloud     18  🔒 encrypted
    [x] editor     9
    [ ] secrets    3  🔒 encrypted

Your selection becomes the --only filter. Pass --only/--skip explicitly to skip the picker entirely.

Restore conflict resolution

When a backed-up file differs from the one on disk, restore (without --force) asks per file:

  Conflict — /Users/you/.zshrc
  the live file differs from the backup
  > Overwrite with backup
    Skip (keep live file)
    Show diff
    Overwrite all remaining
    Skip all remaining

“Show diff” prints a red/green line diff and re-asks. Any overwrite is snapshotted (owner-only) into a pre-restore-… directory first, so a wrong choice is recoverable.

Forcing non-interactive

Pass the relevant flags (--only, --skip, --force, --dry-run) — they pre-answer the prompt, so it’s skipped.
Pipe or redirect (dothaven backup | tee log, CI) — no terminal, no prompt.

Commands

Backup & restore

Quick start Commands