dotfiles (Unix prefs)

MacOS/*nix config files in a central location.

ZSH

Portable Zsh setup lives in config/shell/dot-zprofile. Keep machine-local or internal configuration in ~/.zprofile, and source the tracked configuration first:

source "$HOME/dotfiles/config/shell/dot-zprofile"

The local file is intentionally not linked by run_stow; on this machine it also contains the internal Codex updater and architecture-specific Codex path. API keys remain in ~/.config/codex/env and are never stored in this repository.

~/.zshrc delegates interactive non-login shells to the same configuration without loading login shells twice, and sets the prompt:

if [[ ! -o login ]]; then
  source "$HOME/.zprofile"
fi

source "$HOME/dotfiles/config/shell/dot-zprompt"

The prompt has to be initialised from ~/.zshrc, not ~/.zprofile. Zsh reads ~/.zprofile, then /etc/zshrc, then ~/.zshrc, and the macOS /etc/zshrc sets PS1="%n@%m %1~ %# ". A prompt configured in ~/.zprofile is silently discarded in every login shell, which is what a new terminal window opens.

Oh My Zsh was removed in favour of plain Zsh. Everything it provided that was actually in use is now set explicitly: compinit and the completion styles, the history settings (shared history, timestamps, file and sizes), the word-motion and edit-command-line key bindings, and the window title hooks, all in config/shell/dot-zshrc and config/shell/dot-zhistory. Its git plugin aliases were already shadowed by the git aliases in config/shell/dot-profile. Two of its conveniences were kept: the url-quote-magic widget, in dot-zshrc, and a mkcd function replacing its take, in dot-profile so that Bash gets it too. Nothing outside this repository needs installing for the shell; ~/.oh-my-zsh can be deleted. Measured on macOS, login shell startup went from about 140ms to about 90ms.

config/shell/dot-zhistory holds HISTFILE, HISTSIZE, and SAVEHIST. It is sourced from dot-zprompt, so that it is read from ~/.zshrc, for the same ordering reason as the prompt: the macOS /etc/zshrc resets all three (to SAVEHIST=1000) after ~/.zprofile. The history options are not reset and stay in dot-zshrc.

The Starship prompt, zsh-autosuggestions, and zsh-syntax-highlighting are installed through the Brewfile below. Starship is configured in config/starship/starship.toml, which run_stow links to ~/.config/starship.toml; it keeps the minimal prompt order (user, dir, git, line break, char) that the setup used previously. The right left prompt opens with the OS and its major.minor version and the hostname, so a shell on a remote RHEL box is distinguishable at a glance. Starship's own os module reports a name but no version, so dot-zprompt builds the label once per shell and exports it as DOTFILES_OS for the env_var module to read. It parses /etc/os-release on Linux and SystemVersion.plist on macOS with zsh builtins, costing about 1.4ms; sw_vers would cost 13ms per call, and a starship custom module would pay that on every redraw. The right prompt carries transient detail about the command that just ran: exit status, backgrounded job count, duration once it exceeds 500ms, and the clock. dot-zprompt sets TRANSIENT_RPROMPT so that detail is erased from earlier lines, leaving scrollback with only commands and their output. The prompt is initialised by config/shell/dot-zprompt, sourced from ~/.zshrc. The Brewfile also installs Victor Mono Nerd Font for the prompt glyphs.

Vim

~/vimrc source dotfiles

so ~/dotfiles/config/vim/dot-vimrc_clean

All configs live under config/. Stow targets operate from that directory. Submodules (e.g. skillbook) live under config/shared/.

The Rest can be linked with stow, and homebrew to manage packages

Tmux

Tmux uses the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME variable, which is set in config/shell/dot-profile

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/tmux/tmux.conf

Install the tmux plugin manager and all plugins declared in tmux.conf:

~/dotfiles/config/tmux/install_plugins

The installer is idempotent and is also run by config/run_stow.

Packages (brew)

Install homebrew

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Install Brew packages (includes Stow)

brew bundle install --file=~/dotfiles/config/brew/Brewfile

The Rest

Link the remaining dot files using run_stow

cd ~/dotfiles/config
run_stow

Example of run_stow:

cd ~/dotfiles/config
stow git --dotfiles -t ~/
stow input --dotfiles -t ~/
stow screen --dotfiles -t ~/

AI skills are managed as a submodule at config/shared/skillbook. run_stow initializes that submodule and creates ~/.codex/skills and ~/.claude/skills pointing there directly.

Moving to a modern setup, copying structure from ericsmacedo.

features

Shell (Bash & ZSH)

ls : file list with colour
ll : file list with permissions, human redable file sizes(K M G Bytes) & Colour
la : As ll with hidden files
lt : ls but using tree
.. Up a directory

Screen

Virtual tabs across the bottom of screen (in normal colours).

Inputrc

Tab completion, not case sensitive.
Tab completion works with hidden files.