Your dotfiles are how you personalize your system. Here’s how I set up mine.

Everything’s built around topic areas. Each topic has its own directory.

There’s a few special files in the hierarchy.

• Brewfile: Contains a list of tools for Homebrew to install. You might want to edit this file before running any initial setup.
• bin/: Anything in here will get added to your $PATH.
• topic/*.zsh: Files ending in .zsh get loaded into your environment.
• topic/path.zsh: Files named path.zsh are loaded first and are expected to set up $PATH or similar.
• topic/completion.zsh: Files named completion.zsh are loaded last and are expected to set up autocomplete.
• topic/install.sh: Files named install.sh are executed when you run script/install. To avoid being loaded automatically, their extension is .sh, not .zsh.
• topic/*.symlink: Files named *.symlink get symlinked into your $HOME. This is so you can keep them versioned in your dotfiles repo while also making them available in your home directory.

To get started, run:

# Clone this repository
git clone https://github.com/pmeinhardt/dotfiles.git ~/.dotfiles

# Change into the new directory
cd ~/.dotfiles

# Run the bootstrap script
./script/bootstrap

This will symlink the appropriate files to your home directory.

The bin/dot tool is a simple helper which installs dependencies, sets sane OS defaults, and so on. Tweak and occasionally run dot to keep your environment fresh and up-to-date.

If you would like to install Homebrew to an alternative location, e.g. ~/Developer/Homebrew, do so before running the bootstrap script.

This project is adapted from Zach Holman’s neat dotfiles, trimming down on parts and pulling in pieces from:

• Carlos Alexandro Becker
• Gary Bernhardt
• Gianni Chiappetta
• Jan Moesen
• Mathias Bynens
• Nick Nisi
• Tim Pope
• and many more.

Special thanks to Tim Pope for his excellent Vim plugins.

Thanks to Chris Kempson for his base16 color scheme concept.