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coder/docs/user-guides/workspace-dotfiles.md
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Nick Vigilante c84aa564ba docs: normalize code-fence languages for Shiki compatibility (#27161)
Normalizes non-standard code-fence language tags across `docs/**` so a
strict highlighter (Shiki, used by Fumadocs) won't fail the build on an
unrecognized language, and unifies redundant synonym tags onto one
canonical form per language. The current renderer (Speed-Highlight)
detects the language from the code content, not the fence label, so this
drift wasn't visible until now.

## Changes

- `hcl` -> `tf` (199 fences, including indented ones nested in
numbered/bulleted lists). Shiki ships `hcl` and `terraform` as two
distinct grammars (not aliases); every `hcl`-tagged fence in `docs/**`
is actually Terraform resource/data/provider syntax, so the more
specific `terraform` grammar is correct for all of them. `tf` is Shiki's
own alias for that grammar, and it's also what GitHub's own markdown
renderer resolves to the same HCL/Terraform highlighting.
- `pwsh`/`powershell` -> `ps1`. Both `ps` and `ps1` are registered
PowerShell aliases in Shiki, but on GitHub's renderer only `.ps1` is a
registered file extension (`.ps` isn't), so `ps1` renders identically to
`powershell` there today while bare `ps` would silently lose
highlighting.
- `env` -> `dotenv` (a dedicated Shiki grammar for `KEY=VALUE` files)
- `text`/`output`/`none`/`url` -> `txt`. Same built-in plain-text
fallback either way, just shorter.
- `Dockerfile` -> `dockerfile` (lowercase)
- `bash`/`shell` -> `sh` (732 fences). Shiki and GitHub both alias all
three to a single shell grammar; this was already the style guide's
stated preference, just not enforced across the existing corpus until
now.
- `markdown` -> `md` (4 fences). Alias of the same grammar in both Shiki
and GitHub.
- `jsonc` -> `json` (1 fence). The block has no comments or trailing
commas, so it doesn't need the comments-capable grammar.
- `ts` -> `tsx` (2 fences, `docs/about/contributing/frontend.md`).
Verified the actual content tokenizes identically under both grammars,
and a sibling block in the same file already needs `tsx` for real JSX,
so unifying to one tag is safe for this file. Documented a caveat: `tsx`
mis-tokenizes the legacy angle-bracket type-assertion syntax
(`<Type>value`), which is invalid in real `.tsx` files anyway, so use
`value as Type` instead.
- `yml` -> `yaml` (1 fence)
- Updated `docs/.style/style-guide/formatting.md` to document all
canonical tags

`promql` (2 fences) and `caddyfile` (2 fences) are left as-is. Shiki
doesn't bundle a grammar for either, so they need a custom grammar
registration when the site adopts Shiki, rather than degrading to `txt`.
Tracked as follow-up work under DOCS-118 and
[DOCS-544](https://linear.app/codercom/issue/DOCS-544/vendor-a-local-promql-grammar-for-shiki-syntax-highlighting)
(promql).

Does not touch `offlinedocs/`.

Linear:
[DOCS-476](https://linear.app/codercom/issue/DOCS-476/normalize-docs-code-fence-languages-de-risk-shikifumadocs)

<details>
<summary>How the fence tags were verified</summary>

Each tag was tested against a real `shiki@latest` highlighter instance
(`codeToHtml`/`codeToTokens`) and cross-checked against GitHub's
`@wooorm/starry-night` grammar sources (the renderer that actually
displays these `.md` files today, in repo browsing and PR diffs), since
that's what determines whether brevity is safe before Shiki adoption:

```text
FAIL  env        -- Language `env` is not included in this bundle.
FAIL  Dockerfile -- Language `Dockerfile` is not included in this bundle.
FAIL  promql     -- Language `promql` is not included in this bundle.
FAIL  caddyfile  -- Language `caddyfile` is not included in this bundle.
FAIL  pwsh       -- Language `pwsh` is not included in this bundle.
FAIL  output     -- Language `output` is not included in this bundle.
```

`hcl` doesn't error in Shiki, since it's a real grammar, but that's
exactly the trap: it was silently rendering every fence with the generic
HCL grammar instead of the Terraform-specific one. Every `hcl`-tagged
fence in `docs/**` was manually checked against `origin/main` and is
genuinely Terraform content.

For `ts`/`tsx`, tokenizing the actual doc content confirmed identical
output under both grammars; a synthetic test with the legacy
angle-bracket cast syntax confirmed `tsx` degrades on that specific
construct, which the style guide now calls out.

The first normalization pass only matched fence tags at column 0
(`^```tag$`), missing tags indented inside numbered/bulleted lists. A
follow-up pass caught the remaining occurrences at any indentation
level.

</details>


---

*This PR description and the underlying changes were prepared with Coder
Agents assistance.*
2026-07-15 14:07:09 -04:00

2.2 KiB

Dotfiles

Coder offers the coder dotfiles <repo> command which simplifies workspace personalization. Our behavior is consistent with Codespaces, so their documentation explains how it loads your repo.

You can read more on dotfiles best practices here.

From templates

Templates can prompt users for their dotfiles repo URL, which will personalize your workspace automatically.

Dotfiles in workspace creation

Note

Template admins: this can be enabled quite easily with a our dotfiles module using just a few lines in the template.

Personalize script

Templates may be configured to support executing a ~/personalize script on startup which users can populate with commands to customize their workspaces.

You can even fill personalize with coder dotfiles <repo>, but those looking for a simpler approach can inline commands like so:

#!/bin/bash
sudo apt update
# Install some of my favorite tools every time my workspace boots
sudo apt install -y neovim fish cargo

Note

Template admins: refer to this module to enable the ~/personalize script on templates.

Setup script support

User can setup their dotfiles by creating one of the following script files in their dotfiles repo:

  • install.sh
  • install
  • bootstrap.sh
  • bootstrap
  • script/bootstrap
  • setup.sh
  • setup
  • script/setup

If any of the above files are found (in the specified order), Coder will try to execute the first match. After the first match is found, other files will be ignored.

The setup script must be executable, otherwise the dotfiles setup will fail. If you encounter this issue, you can fix it by making the script executable using the following commands:

cd <path_to_dotfiles_repo>
chmod +x <script_name>
git commit -m "Make <script_name> executable" <script_name>
git push