Dotfiles

These dotfiles contain provisioning scripts for setting up fresh MacOS devices. It is a modified fork of the structured dotfiles of Zach Holman.

Instructions

This repository is designed to run on a completely clean machine, though that isn't necessarily a requirement. For best results, however, you should follow these instructions immediately after logging in and before manually installing anything else (except were asked to as part of the instructions).

Step 1: Preparation

Before running these dotfiles you'll need to do the following:

1. Install git (you can do this on a new MacOS machine by typing "git" in terminal and doing whatever Apple tells you to do)
2. Fork this repository (if you want your own copy) or clone it directly
3. Clone the repository to ~/.dotfiles

# If you forked the repo, replace YOUR_USERNAME with your GitHub username
git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/dotfiles.git ~/.dotfiles

# Set up SSH remote (optional but recommended)
cd ~/.dotfiles
git remote set-url origin git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/dotfiles.git

3. Define local configuration settings

cd ~/.dotfiles
cp .env.template .env
cp local/config.json.example local/config.json
vi .env
vi local/config.json

4. Source the configuration settings

source .env

Step 2: Review everything

From here you may want to take a moment to review the dotfiles:

• Applications in the Brewfile that are no longer relevant?
• Applications in macos/install.sh that you don't use any more?
• Go through the macos/set-defaults.sh to see if you still like all of those settings.

Step 3: Intall the dotfiles

Finally you can run the bootstrap script which will install everything:

cd ~/.dotfiles && ./bootstrap.sh

You can re-run ./bootstrap.sh whenever you feel inspired.

Step 4: Setting MacOS Defaults (Optional)

I suppose every step is optional, but this one really is. You can set up a series of MacOS defaults by running:

cd ~/.dotfiles/macos && ./set-defaults.sh

Step 5: Manual setup

1. Register the shiny new SSH key that the script generated in appropriate places

• GitHub
• Any necessary servers

2. Install your GPG key:

# On the old machine...
gpg --list-secret-keys --keyid-format LONG
gpg --export --armor KEYID > private.key.asc

# Transfer the key securely

# On the new machine...
gpg -d private.key.asc > private.key
gpg --import private.key
rm private.key

Modifying the dotfiles

Organizaztion

Each folder is intended to cover an area of functionality of your computer (as Zach Holman said: topics). As you find new topics of functionality in your computing life you should just toss in a new root directory.

Special Topic Files

There are a few special files which exist in the root directory have a few special files.

• topic/*.zsh: Any files ending in .zsh get sourced into your environment. (Recommended prefixes: env, path, alias, hook)
• topic/*.symlink: Any file ending in *.symlink gets symlinked into your $HOME (with .symlink removed).
• topic/preinstall.sh: Any file named preinstall.sh is executed as part of bootstrap.sh but BEFORE brew is invoked.
• topic/install.sh: Any file named install.sh is executed as part of bootstrap.sh.

Special Root Files

There are also a few special files in the root directory:

• bin/: Anything in bin/ will get added to your $PATH and be made available everywhere.
• Brewfile: This is a list of applications for Homebrew Cask to install.