# BootTidal.hs conceptual questions

**URL:** <https://uzu.lurk.org/t/boottidal-hs-conceptual-questions/6113>\
**Category:** TidalCycles\
**Tags:** innards\
**Created:** [20 February 2026 21:52 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/boottidal-hs-conceptual-questions/6113 "2026-02-20T21:52:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kaosbeat](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/kaosbeat/32/2343_2.png) [@kaosbeat](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/kaosbeat)\
**Post date:** [20 February 2026 21:52 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/boottidal-hs-conceptual-questions/6113/1 "2026-02-20T21:52:28Z")

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Hi,

I've been using TidalCycles for quite a while, in various configurations, on several computers (simultaneously sometimes), with different hardware and network environments or editors (mainly VSCode and emacs). It is quite flexible.  
Sometimes things stop working. I take this for granted, and hope it is not happening the night before a gig. One of the methods to keep things going smoothly is the use of a per setup BootTidal.hs  
It contains info about my network, what other OSC devices to connect to (for visuals), custom tidal functions, number of speakers,...  
It really is a per project file.  
I did some juggling with symlinking BootTidal.hs into my projects directory, but I always have to update this when I change projects or when tidal gets upgraded.  
recently my emacs config stopped working after I did something wrong. I had to reinstall tidalcycles layer, and gone were my customizations (I forgot I made).  
This made me thinking of the per boot need of a custom BootTidal.hs, because I need to look through tons of files to find where it is defined.  
(it's explained in the old [Emacs - TidalCycles userbase](https://userbase.tidalcycles.org/Emacs.html) )

There is this old topic on this [Importing a Custom Function File - #8 by yaxu](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/importing-a-custom-function-file/1432/8) but it feels like the BootTidal.hs file itself has undergone a lot of changes since then.

What would be the best approach to have emacs/VScodium load per tidal session customizations? A tidal session being: opening an editor, loading a .tidal file and starting tidalcycles.

I would be fine by having a per computer base BootTidal.hs and a per project script I can load along from a .tidal file