Your Own Files

Anything you would source from .zshrc can be a spec line instead. It's then staged and byte-compiled like a plugin.

~/.config/zflash/plugins.zsh

zflash load  ~/.zsh/options       # setopt …, before the prompt
zflash load  ~/.zsh/exports       # export …, PATH
# … plugins …
zflash defer ~/.zsh/zstyles
zflash defer ~/.zsh/aliases       # last, so they win over plugin aliases
zflash defer ~/.zsh/functions

How they're handled

• Files outside $ZFLASH_HOME/repos are sourced from where they are.
• They're byte-compiled next to themselves (~/.zsh/aliases.zwc) and recompiled on the fly whenever the file is newer than its .zwc. Edits take effect in the next shell, with no rebuild needed.
• Only adding, removing or reordering spec lines needs a rebuild (which happens automatically when the spec changes).

Splitting up a big .zshrc

A practical layout:

File	Contents	Stage
~/.zsh/options	setopt, HISTSIZE, key bindings	load
~/.zsh/exports	export, path=(…)	load
~/.zsh/zstyles	zstyle lines for completion and plugins	defer
~/.zsh/aliases	alias lines	defer
~/.zsh/functions	function definitions	defer

After the split, ~/.zshrc contains just the two bootstrap lines (plus any variables zflash reads).

:::tip Where to keep them Your rc files can live anywhere, including next to the spec in a dotfiles repo. Use absolute or ~ paths in the spec. :::

A whole directory of your own

A local directory is treated like a plugin repo: zflash finds its plugin file and adds any completion directories it contains.

zflash defer ~/src/my-plugin                   # finds my-plugin.plugin.zsh
zflash fpath ~/.zsh/completions                # your own _mytool completion files

Local directories are never cloned, pulled or removed by zflash clean.