Airtasker dotfiles

The Airtasker dotfiles is a simple repo that installs a selection of standard tools and also symlinks standard configuration files to system

Setup

This is a quick guide to get your setup up and running!

1. Run bootstrap.sh script

   zsh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/airtasker/dotfiles/main/bootstrap.sh)"
   

2. Enter Github Email and Github Personal Access Token (classic)

   The script will prompt the user for their Github email. Once entered, the data is saved in ~/environment/environment.zsh so that you don't need to be prompted again

   The script will also ask for a Github Personal Access Token (classic) which can be added here: https://github.com/settings/tokens The minimum required scope is:

   repo
   read:org
   write:public_key
   admin:ssh_signing_key
   read:packages
   

   Althogh more permissions may be useful if you plan to use the gh cli for other functions

3. Configure P10K Open iTerm2 and run command below

   p10k configure
   

4. Post Install steps To install default asdf versions and other common brew packages

   install_asdf_defaults
   install_brew_defaults
   

Adding variables, aliases and functions

Your ZSH environment will automatically scan any files ending with .sh .zsh .rc in your ~/environment directory. So if you need to add a new environment variable, ensure it exists in ~/environment.

A couple empty files have already been added like ~/environment/aliases.zsh ready to receive your own aliases and functions. These files won't be tracked in git so you can use them to store secrets and other variables.

For instance, I can edit ~/environment/environment.zsh with

export RANDOM_KEY=verysecure

You can open a new terminal or source ~/.zshrc then that variable will be sourced in your environment

If you do edit files in ~/environment/dotfiles then those will be tracked by github as those have been symlinked to that directory from this repository.

Using asdf

asdf is one of the tools installed by the bootstrap script. asdf is a version manager designed to support many different tools making it the one version manager to rule them all! asdf is really simple, first you need to make sure you have the plugin of the tool you want to install.

e.g. To install nodejs version 18.9.0 just run the following.

asdf plugin add nodejs
asdf install nodejs 18.9.0
asdf global nodejs 18.9.0

Running the asdf global command will edit the ~/.tool-versions file which contains the default versions for your system and running asdf local will edit your current directory .tool-versions file. Every time you change directory, asdf will check if a .tool-versions file exists, and if it does will use the versions defined in that file.

If you enter a directory which has a .tool-versions file like this and then run asdf install it will check that file and install the versions defined here allowing you to get setup quickly

nodejs 18.9.0
ruby 3.1.2

What does bootstrap script do?

The bootstrap.sh sets up your mac for first use

• It installs brew and then uses brew to install more tools found in Brewfile.
• Creates new SSH key and uses the gh command line tool to add that key to your github account. (Script will prompt for Github Personal Access Token)
• Installs the asdf version manager tool and also installs the latest version of these tools
  • golang
  • kubectl
  • nodejs
  • python
  • ruby
  • terraform
• Installs oh-my-zsh and powerlevel10k to make your terminal look great!
• Installs NvChad to make your vim spectactular
• Installs a great default tmux config

Dotfiles Structure

The dotfiles are powered by a tool called stow. stow is a simple tool that creates symlinks of folders in the current directory and links them to the parent directory.

The first directory like asdf is considered a package, and the files/folders in this directory are symlinked to the parent directory by default. So files like asdf/.asdfrc will be symlinked to ~/.asdfrc. This is assuming this repo has been cloned to the home directory ~/dotfiles

stow also manages directories, so if the configuration file needs to be symlinked into another directory, you can include those files by placing them in the expected directory structure. For instance, looking at the environment package, we have a file like environment/environment/dotfiles/aliases.zsh which will get symlinked to ~/environment/dotfiles/aliases.zsh

Source structure ~/dotfiles

├── asdf
│   └── .asdfrc
├── dotfiles
|   ├── .editorconfig
│   └── .hushlogin
├── environment
│   └── environment
│       └── dotfiles
|           ├── aliases.zsh
|           ├── environment.zsh
|           └── functions.zsh

Output structure ~ (home directory)

├── .asdfrc
|── .editorconfig
│── .hushlogin
│── environment
│   └── dotfiles
|       ├── aliases.zsh
|       ├── environment.zsh
|       └── functions.zsh