Remote Init (Advanced)

Use this page when you want to initialize config from a remote source.

Supported source forms

user/repo
user/repo:variant
user/repo/branch
gitlab.com/user/repo
https://example.com/path/declarch.kdl
registry/module

Resolution behavior

GitHub shorthand

declarch init username/dotfiles

Resolves to repository default branch and fetches declarch.kdl.

Variant

declarch init username/dotfiles:minimal

Targets variant config (e.g. declarch-minimal.kdl).

Branch

declarch init username/dotfiles/develop

Fetches from explicit branch path.

GitLab

declarch init gitlab.com/username/dotfiles

Direct URL

declarch init https://example.com/config.kdl

Registry module

declarch init hyprland/niri-nico

Typical safe flow

declarch init username/dotfiles --dry-run
declarch init username/dotfiles
declarch lint --mode validate
declarch --dry-run sync

Operational flow

1. Resolve source candidates.
2. Download candidate content.
3. Validate KDL parseability.
4. Write to local config path.
5. Initialize missing local structure if needed.

Safety recommendations

# inspect before writing local config
declarch init username/repo --dry-run

• treat remote config as untrusted input,
• review hooks and backend commands before full sync,
• prefer branch/tag pinning for reproducibility.

Failure modes

• not found: wrong source path/variant/branch.
• parse error: remote file is not valid KDL.
• network error: transport or host availability issue.

Troubleshooting flow

declarch -v init username/repo
declarch lint --mode validate