You got your Oh My Zsh in my dotfiles!

The flexibility of dotfiles meets the power of Oh My Zsh and Homebrew.

Inspired by and compatible with Zach Holman's dotfiles.

Install

The framework is only currently tested on macOS.

1. Clone this repository to ~/.oh-your-dotfiles
2. Start zsh using the directory as the ZDOTDIR:

ZDOTDIR=~/.oh-your-dotfiles zsh

3. Run dotfiles_install. If you haven't yet got the Command-line Developer Tools installed you'll be prompted to install them (On Apple Silicon run installations/updates only under the a native Terminal)
4. If you're not on a macOS release where it's the default, change your default shell to zsh

chsh -s /bin/zsh

5. Start a new terminal session

You're good to go!

Create yourself a dotfiles repository using the conventions below. See https://github.com/DanielThomas/dotfiles for an example of a dotfiles repository.

Built-in Functions

• dotfiles - list dotfiles locations
• dotfiles_find - find files within dotfiles locations, for example dotfiles_find \*.gitrepo
• dotfiles_install - install dotfiles
• dotfiles_update - update dotfiles installed files. Equivalent to running dotfiles_install and choosing S to skip existing
• dotfiles_ignored - show ignored file and directory patterns

How it works

Dotfiles sources are found using the pattern $HOME/.*dotfiles*.

The files within are processed automatically by .zshrc or the installation process depending on their extension.

Scripts set the environment, manage files, perform installation or enable plugins depending on the file name or extension. Bootstrap can be safely run repeatedly, you'll be prompted for the action you want to take if a destination file or directory already exists.

Architecture

The file conventions support an architecture suffix, for instance path.zsh.x86_64 or path.zsh.arm64 which will make the configuration apply conditionally to that architecture.

Installers are run regardless of the prevailing architecture if the machine supports that architecture (i.e. x86_64 on arm64 via Rosetta 2) using arch to force the architecture. The brew command is also shimmed with a function to use the architecture specific location, /usr/local for x86_64 and /opt/homebrew for arm64 based on the prevailing architecture, run brew with arch -x86_64 brew in an arm64 terminal to manually install Intel formulas/casks.

Installer files without a suffix are assumed to be universal and are run using the native architecture for the machine. For files that are strictly compatible with a native architecture, add -native, for instance x86_64-native to indicate that it should be ignored even with x86_64 translation.

Environment

These files set your shell's environment:

• oh-my-zsh.zsh Loaded before oh my zsh is sourced, useful for configuration of a theme (ZSH_THEME)
• path.zsh: Loaded first after oh my zsh is sourced, and expected to setup $PATH
• *.zsh: Get loaded into your environment
• completion.zsh: Loaded last, and expected to setup autocomplete

Files

The following extensions will cause files to be created in your home directory:

• *.symlink: Automaticlly symlinked into your $HOME as a dot file during bootstrap. For example, a file myfile.symlink will be linked as $HOME/.myfile. If a directory the files within will be symlinked relatively, for instance config.symlink/mytool/myconfig will be linked as $HOME/.config/mytool/myconfig
• *.gitrepo: Contains a URL to a Git repository to be cloned as a dotfile. For example myrepo.gitrepo will be cloned to $HOME/.myrepo
• *.themegitrepo: Contains a URL to a Git repository to be cloned as a custom zsh theme. For example mytheme.gitrepo will be cloned to $HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom/themes/mytheme
• *.gitpatch: Name repo-<number>.gitpatch to apply custom patches to a gitrepo repository
• *.otf, *.ttf, *.ttc: Fonts are copied to ~/Library/Fonts during bootstrap
• *.plist: Preference lists are copied to ~/Library/Preferences during bootstrap
• *.launchagent: Files are copied to ~/Library/LaunchAgents during bootstrap

Ignoring Directories

Hidden files and directories and bin/ directories are ignored by default. To ignore a specific directory, add a .dotfiles_ignore file to a directory.

Run dotfiles_ignored to see the list of ignored directories and dotfiles_find \* to see all candidate files.

Installers

Installation steps during bootstrap can be handled in several ways:

• install.sh: An installation shellscript
• install.homebrew: A list of Homebrew formulas to install
• install.homebrew-cask: A list of Homebrew casks to install
• install.homebrew-tap: A list of Homebrew taps
• install.mas: A list of App Store apps to install
• install.open: A list of files to be handled by the default application association using the open command

Installing from the App Store with install.mas files

Applications from the App Store are referenced by a numeric id rather than a name. In order to find out the id you can use the command mas search <term>. Entries in install.mas should be in the format <id> <name> (the same format as the results of mas search).

Plugins

• All topic directory names are implicitly added to the plugin list, so you get osx and brew automatically
• Plugins listed in oh-my-zsh.plugins files are read and added to this list

Profiling Startup Time

If your shell is taking an excessive amount of time to start, run zsh with the DOTFILES_PROFILE_ZSHRC environment variable:

DOTFILES_PROFILE_ZSHRC=true zsh

Then run tools/startlog.py against the output in /tmp to determine the contributors to startup time. For more details, see:

https://kev.inburke.com/kevin/profiling-zsh-startup-time/