confedit

A powerful CLI tool for managing and applying configuration files across different formats and systems. Built with CUE for type-safe configuration definition and Go for high performance.

Features

Core Capabilities

• 🔧 Multi-Format Support: INI, YAML, TOML, JSON, XML configuration files
• 📋 CUE Configuration: Type-safe configuration definition with schema validation
• 🎯 Target Management: Apply configurations to files, dconf, systemd, sed operations
• 🔄 Deep Merging: Automatically merge multiple CUE files with conflict resolution
• 📊 Status Checking: Compare desired vs actual configuration state
• 💾 Automatic Backups: Optional backup creation with checksums before modifications
• 🎨 Clean CLI: Modern interface with subcommands (apply, status, list, generate)

Configuration Features

• Variables: Define and reuse values across targets with variables: { ... }
• Hooks: Execute custom scripts before/after applying configurations
• Multi-File: Split configurations across multiple CUE files for better organization
• Format Options: Control spacing, indentation, pretty printing per format
• Discovery: List and inspect all configured targets in multiple output formats

Usage

CLI Commands

Show all available commands:

./confedit --help

List configured targets:

# Basic list (table format)
./confedit list

# Detailed information
./confedit list --long

# JSON output
./confedit list --format json

# YAML output with details
./confedit list --format yaml --long

Check configuration status:

# Check all targets
./confedit status

# Check specific targets
./confedit status target1 target2

# Use custom config directory
./confedit status --config /path/to/config

Apply configurations:

# Apply all configurations
./confedit apply

# Apply specific targets
./confedit apply target1 target2

# Dry run (preview changes)
./confedit apply --dry-run

# Force backup creation
./confedit apply --backup

# Use custom config directory
./confedit apply --config /path/to/config

Generate configurations:

# Generate configuration from differences between files
./confedit generate --type file source.ini target.ini

# Generate sed configuration from file differences
./confedit generate --type sed original.conf modified.conf

# Generate with custom name and output
./confedit generate --type file --name my-config --output my-config.cue source.yaml target.yaml

# Specify file format explicitly
./confedit generate --type file --file-format ini source.ini target.ini

Show version:

./confedit version

Configuration Structure

Configurations are defined using CUE files. See complete examples in testdata/.

Basic structure:

• variables: { ... } - Define reusable values across targets
• targets: [ ... ] - Configuration targets (file, dconf, systemd, sed)
• hooks: { ... } - Optional pre/post apply commands

Multi-file support: Split configurations across multiple .cue files for better organization. The tool automatically discovers and merges all CUE files in the config directory, merging targets with the same name.

Target Types

file - Configuration file management

• Supported formats: INI, YAML, TOML, JSON, XML
• Features: Backup support, ownership/permissions control, format-specific options
• Use cases: Application configs, system settings, any structured file

dconf - GNOME/GTK settings

• Purpose: Manage GNOME desktop and GTK application settings
• Features: User-specific or system-wide settings, automatic dconf updates
• Use cases: Desktop environment configuration, GNOME app preferences

systemd - systemd service configuration

• Purpose: Manage systemd unit properties and settings
• Features: Automatic daemon-reload after changes, property management
• Use cases: Service configuration, unit file modifications

sed - Text file editing with sed

• Purpose: Apply sed commands for precise text file edits
• Features: Multiple sed operations, backup support, idempotent changes
• Use cases: Complex find/replace, line insertion/deletion, regex-based edits

Examples

Complete working examples are in testdata/. All examples can be tested without modifying your system.

Basic Usage Examples

INI file configuration - testdata/01-example-config.cue

./confedit list -c testdata/01-example-config.cue
./confedit status -c testdata/01-example-config.cue

Variables - testdata/variables-config.cue

./confedit list -c testdata/variables-config.cue

Multi-file merging - Automatically merges all .cue files in a directory

./confedit list -c testdata/

Hooks - Pre/post apply commands - testdata/hooks-config/

./confedit list -c testdata/hooks-config/
./confedit apply -c testdata/hooks-config/ --dry-run

Sed operations - testdata/sed-example-config.cue

./confedit list -c testdata/sed-example-config.cue
./confedit apply -c testdata/sed-example-config.cue --dry-run

Common Workflows

Safe configuration changes:

# 1. Check what would change
./confedit status -c testdata/

# 2. Preview changes (dry-run)
./confedit apply --dry-run -c testdata/

# 3. Apply with backups
./confedit apply --backup -c testdata/

Working with specific targets:

# Check specific targets only
./confedit status example-ini-config -c testdata/

# Apply only specific targets
./confedit apply example-ini-config --backup -c testdata/

Export configuration information:

# List all targets (table format)
./confedit list -c testdata/

# Detailed information
./confedit list --long -c testdata/

# Export as JSON
./confedit list --format json -c testdata/ > targets.json

# Export as YAML
./confedit list --format yaml --long -c testdata/

Development

Build from source:

git clone https://github.com/thedataflows/confedit.git
cd confedit
go build .

Development workflow:

This repo uses mise-en-place

# Set environment using mise
mise up

# Run in development mode
LOG_LEVEL=debug go run .

# Build binary
go build .

# Run tests
go test ./...

Requirements:

• Go 1.25+

Docker

Build Docker image:

docker build -t confedit .

Run with Docker:

# Run interactively
docker run --rm -it confedit --help

Use pre-built image from GitHub Container Registry:

docker pull ghcr.io/thedataflows/confedit:latest
docker run --rm ghcr.io/thedataflows/confedit:latest version

License

MIT License