A question about run_onchage_ scripts

[vbrand1984]

Consider I create a script in .chezmoiscripts which is called run_onchange_after_do-smth.sh (after_ or before_, it does not matter in this regard), and the contents is as following:

{{- if not (env "DO_NOT_RUN") -}}
<...>
<whatever>
<...>
{{- end -}}

As you can see, if chezmoi is run when the DO_NOT_RUN environment variable is set, the contents of this script is completely empty. As I've figured out through some testing, if the entrails of the script's contents do not change between runs of chezmoi apply, but DO_NOT_RUN=1 chezmoi apply is run, after that this script is not triggered during runs of chezmoi apply in normal environment.

As far as I can get it, this feature is not reflected in the documentation (correct me if I'm wrong), but it's quite logical: if a contents of a script is completely empty, the script is apparently not being run, but also chezmoi does not remember its "empty" state and it is not counted as a "change" in script's contents (because there is, well, no contents of the script when that environment variable is set).

This is an amazing thing, a method to "turn off" a script on demand while not altering chezmoi's "onchange" state. I'm interested, is this an "official" way of how chezmoi works and can I rely on such behaviour while building my configuration?

[halostatue]

You could try modifying the script to do nothing when DO_NOT_RUN is set, but don't make it completely empty.

[vbrand1984]

You could try modifying the script to do nothing when DO_NOT_RUN is set, but don't make it completely empty.

Thank you for suggestion, but I've pondered over this variant, and it doesn't suit my use case. The thing is, in this case the script won't do its job when it's triggered, and it won't be triggered on the consequential runs of chezmoi, because it has been already run with certain contents.

The thing is, I keep my graphical settings like GTK theme, font configuration, etc. in chezmoi config, and I made a simple script to change certain keys in this toml file and then run chezmoi apply. I trigger this script from the WM menu, and I want onchange_after_ scripts which monitor changes in graphical settings to be run in order to reconfigure WM, restart panel etc., but I don't want other onchange_ scripts which manage packages to be run, because these require tty to enter the password. The latter ones are changed rarely, but I want to have a way to reliably shut them down when chezmoi is run so to say "tty-less", while keeping the opportunity for them to do their job when chezmoi apply is run in a terminal.

[twpayne]

I'm interested, is this an "official" way of how chezmoi works and can I rely on such behaviour while building my configuration?

Yes, you can rely on this.

[vbrand1984]

Thank you, @twpayne!