Dotfiles

A modular configuration system for shell environments and developer tools.

Structure

dotfiles/
├── bin/                    # Executable scripts (added to PATH)
│   └── git-leaderboard     # Git contributor statistics script
├── zsh/                    # ZSH configuration modules
│   ├── aliases.zsh         # Command shortcuts and functions
│   ├── path.zsh            # PATH and environment variables
│   ├── plugins.zsh         # Plugin configuration
│   ├── mise.zsh            # mise runtime version manager setup
│   └── dev-tools.zsh       # Development tools configuration
├── git/                    # Git configuration
│   ├── gitconfig           # Global git settings
│   └── gitignore_global    # Global gitignore rules
├── install.sh              # Installation script
└── README.md               # This file

Principles

1. Modularity: Each file should focus on one specific aspect of configuration
2. Machine independence: Core configurations stay consistent across all machines
3. Local customization: Machine-specific settings live in the local ~/.zshrc
4. Performance: Heavy operations should be optimized or lazy-loaded

Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/dotfiles.git ~/dotfiles

# Run the installer
cd ~/dotfiles && ./install.sh

Setting Up a New Machine

1. Install prerequisites:

   # macOS
   brew install mise zsh-syntax-highlighting

2. Clone and install dotfiles:

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/dotfiles.git ~/dotfiles
   cd ~/dotfiles && ./install.sh

3. Create a minimal ~/.zshrc that sources the modules:

   # ~/.zshrc
   # Machine-specific variables
   export MACHINE_TYPE="personal"  # or "work", "server", etc.
   
   # Source core configs from dotfiles repo
   source ~/dotfiles/zsh/aliases.zsh
   source ~/dotfiles/zsh/path.zsh
   source ~/dotfiles/zsh/plugins.zsh
   source ~/dotfiles/zsh/mise.zsh
   source ~/dotfiles/zsh/dev-tools.zsh
   
   # Machine-specific configurations
   if [[ "$MACHINE_TYPE" == "work" ]]; then
     # Work-specific settings
     # example: source ~/work-config.zsh
   fi

Adding New Configuration

For shell aliases or functions

Add to ~/dotfiles/zsh/aliases.zsh for portability across all machines.

For PATH or environment variables

Add to ~/dotfiles/zsh/path.zsh for consistent environment setup.

For machine-specific settings

Add directly to the local ~/.zshrc after the sourcing of shared modules.

For executable scripts

1. Add script to ~/dotfiles/bin/
2. Make executable: chmod +x ~/dotfiles/bin/your-script
3. Ensure ~/dotfiles/bin is in your PATH (managed in path.zsh)

Version Managers

This setup uses mise to manage language runtimes:

# Install a specific version
mise install node@18.16.0

# Set default version
mise use --global node@18.16.0

# Project-specific version
cd your-project
mise use node@16.14.0

Updating

cd ~/dotfiles
git pull
./install.sh  # Run the installer to apply any changes