Create a symbolic link
Low risk
What do risk levels mean?
- Read-only
- Inspects state without changing anything.
- Low risk
- Reversible with a routine follow-up command.
- Medium risk
- Changes state; undo path documented.
- Destructive
- Deletes or overwrites; confirmation required.
Creates a symlink so a file or directory is reachable from another path — commonly used for dotfiles, shared configs, and versioned tool installs.
filessymlinklink
Parameters
Existing file or directory the link should point to.
Path of the new symlink to create.
Commands
Confirm the target exists before linking to it
ls -ld "<target>"Create the symbolic link
ln -s "<target>" "<link>"Verification
ls -l "<link>"The link is shown with an arrow pointing at the target path.
Undo
Remove the symlink; the target is untouched
rm "<link>"Pitfalls
- A relative target is resolved from the link's directory, not your current directory — prefer absolute targets unless you want the link to be relocatable.
- ln -s does not fail if the target does not exist; you get a broken link.
- On Windows, creating symlinks requires Developer Mode or an elevated PowerShell.
- Never rm -r a symlink to a directory with a trailing slash — some shells resolve it and delete the target's contents.