---

• This is a fork (really a degit) of Mina Markham's excellent macOS setup script, Formation.
• Details below on what's installed are not up-to-date. See the swag folder for what's actually installed.
• slay is the runtime (is that the right word?), twirl contains all the functions for the script.
• slay installs Homebrew if it's not already installed.
• Assets:
  • apps are Mac App Store apps installed by the mas CLI. (The numbers are IDs you can find in the Share links for apps in the App Store. The app names are just for use by this script and should not contain spaces.)
  • casks are Mac apps installed by Homebrew. (Casks prefixed with '#' are ignored. Search for apps on brew.sh)
  • brews are cli tools installed by Homebrew
  • npm are Node packages installed by npm
• Heads up: brew install --cask fails if a cask app was already installed without using brew.
• In addition to apps, this script...
  • Sets some system preferences. See the 'CONFIGURE: System & Safari Preferences' section in slay.
  • Gives the option of downloading Apple's UI fonts SF Pro, SF Compact, and SF Mono.
• The script can be run using bash setup.sh.

Mihira Jayasekera
July 21, 2021

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🐝 Formation

Formation is a shell script to set up a macOS laptop for design and development.

It can be run multiple times on the same machine safely. It installs, upgrades, or skips packages based on what is already installed on the machine.

Install

Download the script:

git clone git@github.com/minamarkham/formation.git && cd formation

Review the script (please don't run scripts you don't understand):

less slay

Slay:

cd formation
./slay 2>&1 | tee ~/slay.log

Just follow the prompts and you’ll be fine. 👌

⚠️ Warning: I advise against running this script unless you understand what it’s doing to your computer.

I created this based on my own preferences; your mileage may vary.

Once the script is done, quit and relaunch Terminal.

It is highly recommended to run the script regularly to keep your computer up to date.

Your last Formation run will be saved to ~/slay.log. To review it, run less ~/slay.log.

That's it! ✨

What it sets up

The setup process will install:

Basic tools:

• XCode Command Line Tools for developer essentials.
• Bash-it, for a more powerful bash.
• Git for version control
• Homebrew for managing operating system libraries.

Package Managers:

• NVM for managing and installing multiple versions of Node.js and npm
• Rbenv for managing versions of Ruby
• Yarn for managing JavaScript packages

CLI Tools & Utilities:

• asciinema for recording terminal sessions
• Gulp the streaming build system
• Hotel, a simple process manager for developers
• Hub for interacting with the GitHub API
• hugo, an open-source static site generator
• ImageMagick to create, edit, compose, or convert bitmap images
• mas Mac App Store command line interface
• Tig text-mode interface for git
• Vagrant for development environments

Apps

Productivity

• Airmail for a better mail client.
• Alfred for increased productivity and efficiency with macOS.
• Fantastical for a better calendar.
• Things for getting things done.

Development

• Dash offline access to API documentation sets
• ForkLift FTP client
• Hyper for an alternative terminal.
• ImageOptim for image optimization.
• iTerm for a better terminal.
• Kaleidoscope for a better diff tool.
• Virtual Box powerful virtualization tool
• Visual Studio Code IDE

Design

• Affinity Designer
• Affinity Photo
• Sip collect, organize & share your colors
• Sketch for design.

Communication

• Bear for writing and previewing markdown.
• Skype for free calls to friends and family.
• Slack where work happens.
• Ulysses for long-form writing.

Utilities

• 1Password for password management.
• Dropbox for cloud file storage.
• Divvy for better window management.
• Encrypto for securing files.
• ExpressVPN for privacy.
• HyperDock
• Karabiner for keyboard mapping.
• Renamer for easy file renaming.

Miscellaneous

• Gifox for GIF making.
• Rocket for Slack-like emojis.
• Spotify for music.
• VLC for a better media player.

Browsers

• Blisk for cross-device web development.
• Brave for web browsing without ads.
• Chrome for fast and free web browsing.
• Firefox for web browsing and testing.
• TorBrowser for super secret web browsing.

_{See swag for the full list of apps that will be installed. Adjust it to your personal taste.}

It should take less than 20 minutes to install (depends on your machine).

🌶 Just add ~/.hot-sauce

Your ~/.hot-sauce is added at the end of the Formation script. Put your customizations there. For example:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

SETUP_ROOT=$HOME/.setup

NERDFONTS_RELEASE=$(curl -L -s -H 'Accept: application/json' https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/releases/latest)
NERDFONTS_VERSION=$(get_github_version $NERDFONTS_RELEASE)

DIRECTORIES=(
    $HOME/Desktop/code
    $HOME/Desktop/design
    $HOME/Desktop/*dump
    $HOME/Desktop/GIFs
    $HOME/Desktop/projects
    $HOME/Desktop/screenshots
)

NERDFONTS=(
    SpaceMono
    Hack
    AnonymousPro
    Inconsolata
)

step "Making directories…"
for dir in ${DIRECTORIES[@]}; do
    mkd $dir
done

step "Installing fonts…"
for font in ${NERDFONTS[@]}; do
    if [ ! -d ~/Library/Fonts/$font ]; then
        printf "${indent}  [↓] $font "
        wget -P ~/Library/Fonts https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/releases/download/$NERDFONTS_VERSION/$font.zip --quiet;unzip -q ~/Library/Fonts/$font -d ~/Library/Fonts/$font
        print_in_green "${bold}✓ done!${normal}\n"
    else
        print_muted "${indent}✓ $font already installed. Skipped."
    fi
done

Write your customizations such that they can be run safely more than once. See the slay script for examples.

Formation functions such as step and link can be used in your ~/.hot-sauce.

Known Issues

Cask does not recognize applications installed outside of Homebrew Cask – in the case that the script fails, you can either remove the application from the install list or uninstall the application causing the failure and try again.

Acknowledgements

Inspiration and code was taken from many sources, including:

• Mathias Bynens' dotfiles
• thoughtbot's laptop

📜 License

Formation is customized for my own needs. It is free software, and may be redistributed under the terms specified in the LICENSE file.