Set up instructions: https://developer.atlassian.com/blog/2016/02/best-way-to-store-dotfiles-git-bare-repo/ git init --bare $HOME/.cfg alias config='/usr/bin/git --git-dir=$HOME/.cfg/ --work-tree=$HOME' config config --local status.showUntrackedFiles no config add/commit/pull origin master If you want to apply the global gitignore run after pulling git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global