Dotfiles 🌚

Personal dotfiles and development environment configuration guide for macOS.

Configuration files

This repo is managed by chezmoi. To set up on a new machine:

brew install chezmoi
chezmoi init --apply https://github.com/zlliang/dotfiles.git

I use ~/Workspace/github/zlliang/dotfiles as the source directory, so for me:

chezmoi init -S ~/Workspace/github/zlliang/dotfiles --apply https://github.com/zlliang/dotfiles.git

Or if already initialized, just apply the latest changes:

chezmoi apply

Guide to configure a new Mac

1. Install Xcode or Xcode Command Line Tools: run xcode-select --install
   • This will install the necessary tools for building and running software on macOS, including Git
2. Install Homebrew
3. Set Fish as the default shell:
   • Install via Homebrew: brew install fish
   • Add /opt/homebrew/bin/fish to /etc/shells
   • Set the default shell: chsh -s /opt/homebrew/bin/fish
   • Note: fish configuration file is located at ~/.config/fish/config.fish
4. Programming language toolkits:
   • JavaScript: nodenv for Node.js, and bun
   • Python: uv
   • Go: brew install go
5. Command line tools:
   • Essential:
     • eza: a modern, maintained replacement for ls
     • fd: a simple, fast and user-friendly alternative to find
     • bat: a cat clone with wings
     • ripgrep (rg): an alternative to grep
     • zoxide (z): a faster way to navigate your filesystem
     • gh: GitHub CLI
   • Good to have:
     • tokei: code counter
     • dust: a more intuitive version of du
     • btop: a terminal monitor of system resources
     • fastfetch: a neofetch-like system information tool
     • hyperfine: a command-line benchmarking tool
6. Desktop apps:
   • Essential:
     • VS Code: the code editor
     • Mole: Deep clean and optimize your Mac
     • Hidden Bar (brew install hiddenbar)
     • Scroll Reverser (brew install scroll-reverser)
     • IINA (brew install iina)
     • Keka (brew install keka)
     • Surge
     • Replaceicon
   • Good to have:
     • Proxyman (brew install proxyman)
     • Orbstack (brew install orbstack)
     • Postman (brew install postman) or HTTPie (brew install httpie)
7. Coding agents:
   • Amp is my primary coding agent, and my profile can be found here
   • Codex is a secondary tool I use, via the CLI, the VS Code extension, and the standalone app, through my ChatGPT Plus subscription
   • I also use Claude Code and Cursor on my work laptop