PRJ Base Directory Specification

The PRJ Base Directory Specification sets a number of conventions for project-centric tooling. With the ambition that all tools adopt it 😇

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STATUS: unstable

Rationale

For the longest time, Unix tools would litter the user's home with dotfiles that contain a mix of configuration and data files. As a user, it was hard to know what files should be kept when moving between systems, or even to which program a file belonged. It was also causing a lot of noise when listing the directory.

Then one day, some gentle people decided to write the XDG Base Directory Specification. It didn’t do anything on its own except lay down some conventions. Config files should now live under ~/.config, cached files would live under ~/.cache, and so on.

Nowadays, most programs respect this specification and it’s easier for users to move their config around by copying the ~/.config folder around. Or bust the ~/.cache folder when running low on disk space, ...

Similarly, code repositories nowadays are filled with top-level configuration files. Build tools put build results next to config and code. And every tool re-invents heuristics to find where the project root is.

This document sets a small number of conventions.

Projects following this spec

In alphabetical order.

PRs to add your own are welcome!

Libraries following this spec

In alphabetical order.

PRs to add your own are welcome!

Related projects

• dot-config - defines .config for projects

Contributions

Contributions are welcome!

Use the Discussions page to discuss scope and implementation. Or send PRs.

License

This document is licensed under the CC0 1.0.