// the find
mxcl/Workbench
Seamless, automatic, “dotfile” sync to iCloud.
Workbench is a macOS menu bar app that syncs dotfiles to iCloud via CloudKit, built by Max Howell (the brew guy). It handles individual files from your home directory, watches for changes, and keeps a backup that survives a clean macOS reinstall. Single-machine only, so it is backup software, not sync software.
CloudKit storage means your dotfiles are encrypted and Apple doesn't expose them to the developer — genuinely better privacy story than most dotfile sync tools. Notarized and auto-updating binary lowers the bar to adoption for non-technical users. The PromiseKit-based CloudKit wrapper code is clean and readable. Coming from the author of Homebrew, the file-watching and path handling are done properly rather than bolted on.
Last push was June 2021 — five years of abandonment with macOS changes since then (Ventura, Sonoma, Sequoia) makes it a real gamble whether it still works. Single-machine limitation is a showstopper for anyone who actually wants dotfile sync across machines, which is most of the use case. Vendored dependencies checked in as source files (PromiseKit, Path.swift, etc.) rather than using SPM packages is messy and has not been kept current. The 1 MB per-file CloudKit limit will cause silent failures for anyone with a large .zsh_history or similar.