It’s been about a month since I started this series, that is, since I initialized my Emacs configuration. While considering coding productivity, I felt it was time to integrate LSP into my setup. But…

When I gave it a try, I saw unwanted generated codes appearing in my init.el. I need to find a way to change the destination of these generated codes.

Separating Custom Settings

One of the most common issues with Emacs configuration is the automatic insertion of custom settings into init.el. This can make your carefully crafted configuration file messy and hard to maintain. Picture this: you’re writing a research paper, methodically validating every logical progression, when someone reaches over and scribbles ‘Source: Trust me bro’ in your citations section──what the heck are you doing?

Let’s fix this:

(leaf cus-edit
  :doc "tools for customizing Emacs and Lisp packages"
  :custom
  `((custom-file . ,(locate-user-emacs-file "custom.el"))))

Note: You might need to create the custom.el file manually if it doesn’t exist:

touch ~/.emacs.d/custom.el

Now our init.el is kept organized because cus-edit.el redirects custom settings to a separate file (custom.el).

As a similar problem, we have the problem with .emacs.d:

The default paths used to store configuration files and persistent data are inconsistent across Emacs packages. This isn’t just a problem with third-party packages but even with built-in packages. (ref: no-littering website)

I want to avoid this because my .emacs.d/ is git-managed:

(leaf no-littering
  :doc "Keep .emacs.d/ clean"
  :url "https://github.com/emacscollective/no-littering"
  :ensure t)

And now our .emacs.d/ and init.el are kept as tidy! The state of init.el at the conclusion of this article can be found here 🚀

Related Emacs Functions

• custom-file
• locate-user-emacs-file

References

• cus-edit
• no-littering