Syncing across machines

Your library can follow you to a second laptop, a work machine or a server, through a private git repository that you own. Nothing is sent anywhere else, and this is optional: lore works fully on one machine without it.

With the GitHub CLI installed and logged in, run this on each machine:

lore sync init

The first time, it creates a private repository called lore-library on your GitHub account. On every other machine it finds that repository and connects to it. Without the GitHub CLI, create an empty private repository on any git host and give its address instead:

lore sync init git@github.com:you/lore-library.git

After that there is nothing to remember. Every save, edit and removal is synced in the background, and the picker fetches other machines’ changes when it has not done so for a while. To sync right away, or to see why a sync failed:

lore sync
lore sync status

lore runs your own git, so it uses whatever login git push already uses, and never sees a password or token. On a server, that means the server needs access to the repository, for example through an SSH key.

Two machines can save at the same time without a merge conflict. lore merges by entry rather than by line, so new commands from both are kept. If the same entry was edited differently on two machines, the version synced first keeps its id and the other is kept as a copy, such as user.deploy-2, and the sync says so.

Only the library is synced. Which commands you use most is kept per machine.

Sync commits are made by lore, not by you, so saving a command does not file a contribution against your GitHub profile. To put your own name on them instead, set an identity on lore’s clone of the repository:

git -C ~/.local/share/lore/sync config user.name "Your Name"
git -C ~/.local/share/lore/sync config user.email "you@example.com"

On macOS that directory is ~/Library/Application Support/lore/sync, and on Windows %APPDATA%\lore\data\sync.

Keep the repository private. Saved commands often contain server names, user names and internal addresses.

To stop syncing on a machine, run lore sync disconnect. Your library stays, and so does the repository. Set LORE_NO_AUTO_SYNC=1 to sync only when you run lore sync yourself.

If you would rather not use git at all, point LORE_CONFIG_DIR at a folder that Dropbox, iCloud Drive or OneDrive already syncs.