Sources

repoverlay supports three types of overlay sources: local directories, GitHub repositories, and overlay repository references.

Local directories

The simplest source — a directory on your filesystem:

repoverlay apply /path/to/overlay
repoverlay apply ./relative/overlay

Files are symlinked (or copied) directly from the source directory. Changes to the source are reflected immediately when using symlinks.

GitHub repositories

Pull overlays from any public GitHub repository:

# Default branch
repoverlay apply https://github.com/owner/repo

# Specific branch or tag
repoverlay apply https://github.com/owner/repo/tree/v1.0.0
repoverlay apply https://github.com/owner/repo --ref develop

# Subdirectory within a repo
repoverlay apply https://github.com/owner/repo/tree/main/overlays/rust

GitHub sources are cached locally using shallow clones. Use repoverlay update to pull new changes.

Overlay repository references

If you've configured a shared overlay repository, you can reference overlays by name:

repoverlay apply org/repo/overlay-name

This is the most convenient way to share overlays across a team or organization. See Overlay Repositories for setup details.

How sources are resolved

When you provide a source string, repoverlay determines the type automatically:

1. Strings starting with https://github.com/ are treated as GitHub sources
2. Strings that look like filesystem paths (./, /, ~/) are treated as local sources
3. Strings matching the org/repo/name pattern are treated as overlay repo references