History

configfile records what each command changed, when, and whether it failed, in ~/.configfile/history.jsonl: one JSON line per run of init, modules deploy, modules undeploy, update and scripts run (dry runs and usage errors excepted), and per unexpected error of any command. Each line has the time, the configfile version, the command and its options, the current folder, the exit code, the error message, and the changes: files linked, copied, moved aside to .old, removed, restored, kept or skipped, syncs (from which commit to which, and saved patches), scripts and their exit codes (with the module and the setting, for a script a module names, and the scripts a module names that were not run on purpose).

Script arguments, environment variables and file contents are never recorded. In URLs, user names and passwords (https://user:token@host) and query parameters that look like secrets (?private_token=…) are hidden. Paths are recorded in full, so they include your user name. When configfile creates the file, only its owner can read it. A run stopped by a signal (Ctrl+C outside a question) is not recorded, unless the signal comes while a script or git runs: configfile then leaves it to that program, and records the run with its exit code (for a deployment or undeployment stopped during a script a module names: 130 after Ctrl+C, 143 after SIGTERM, whatever the script’s own exit code).

configfile history shows the last runs:

2026-10-01 11:12  modules deploy zsh  ok
  linked    ~/.zshrc  (previous file moved to ~/.zshrc.old)
  2 unchanged

2026-10-01 11:15  update  exit 128
  error     git fetch failed (exit code 128).

-n <count> shows another number of runs, and --json prints the lines as they are written.

The file is also easy to query with jq, for example to list the failed runs:

jq 'select(.exitCode != 0)' ~/.configfile/history.jsonl

When the file reaches history_max_size (1MB by default; a number of bytes, or a size such as "512KB" or "5MB" in ~/.configfilerc), it is renamed to history.1.jsonl, replacing the previous one, so the history takes about twice that size at most. "history_max_size": 0 turns the history off. An invalid value gives the default and a warning; when ~/.configfilerc cannot be read, nothing is recorded.