Tracking private and public parts of the same project with chezmoi

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 14:00:00 +0700

I keep some files inside my project’s working directory that don’t belong to the project. Editor config. Claude Code settings under .claude/. A justfile.local with maintainer-only commands. They’re useful only to me, but I want them version-controlled — across machines, with history.

They can’t go in the public repo. I needed a way to track them that stays out of the public history, stays out of contributors’ way, and stays restorable on a fresh machine.

Here’s the shape that works for me.

Chezmoi on Kostiantyn Lysenko

Tracking private and public parts of the same project with chezmoi