Brian's dot files

This is a collection of scripts and config that I use to configure my environments. I've specifically targeted MacOS and Linux distro's that use apt as their package manager, and there's a separate native Windows track too. Take anything here that is useful to you, but do so at your own risk (don't be that person that just takes code and scripts from the internet without understanding them is all I'm saying).

What's in the box?

• My ZSH and OhMyZsh config, based on the PowerLevel10k theme and also includes my preferred extensions
• Install MISE to help with installation of dev tools and other useful bits
• Includes a bunch of apps I like which I would install on a MacOS build (check install/Brewfile for those)
• Adds extensions I like to VSCode, again have a look in install/code-extensions for the list
• Does basic package updates and upgrades in linux distros
• A parallel native Windows setup in windows/, driven by PowerShell 7 and winget instead of make and Homebrew, with an oh-my-posh prompt in place of PowerLevel10k

Installation

macOS and Linux

On a fresh install of MacOS you'll need the dev tools to get git and make, so start there in a terminal window.

sudo softwareupdate -i -a
xcode-select --install

If you're on linux just make sure you have the appropriate dev tools installed. For example, on debian this looks like this:

sudo apt install build-essential

Once the tools are in place, clone this repo and run the make command:

git clone https://github.com/BrianFarnhill/dotfiles.git ~/.dotfiles
cd ~/.dotfiles
make

Windows (native)

Native Windows has its own entrypoint - there is no make here. windows/bootstrap.ps1 is the Windows equivalent, and it shares the cross-platform pieces of this repo (the VS Code extension list in install/code-extensions, and mise) while installing everything else the Windows way.

Prerequisites:

• PowerShell 7 (winget install Microsoft.PowerShell) - Windows PowerShell 5.1 is not enough
• winget, which ships as App Installer from the Microsoft Store on current Windows builds
• Optionally Developer Mode (Settings > System > For developers), or an elevated shell, so the PowerShell profile can be symlinked. Without it the profile is copied instead and the script tells you so - re-run the script after changing the profile to refresh the copy.

git clone https://github.com/BrianFarnhill/dotfiles.git $HOME\.dotfiles
cd $HOME\.dotfiles
pwsh -File windows/bootstrap.ps1

The script installs the apps listed in windows/winget.json, installs the shared VS Code extensions, installs mise and the tools in config/mise/config.toml, puts mise's shims directory on your PATH so those tools work outside PowerShell too, links config/ into $XDG_CONFIG_HOME the way stow does on the other platforms, links windows/Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 to $PROFILE.CurrentUserAllHosts, and points git at the 1Password SSH agent. It is idempotent, so re-running it is a no-op: only missing packages are imported, and upgrading stays a deliberate winget upgrade rather than something bootstrapping does behind your back. Individual steps can be skipped with -SkipApps, -SkipMise, -SkipExtensions, -SkipProfile and -SkipGit.

Paths, the app list and the oh-my-posh theme all live in files rather than in the script: windows/config.json, windows/winget.json and windows/oh-my-posh.json. Machine specific additions go in ~/.local.profile.ps1, which the profile sources if it exists - the same idea as ~/.local.zshrc on the other platforms.

You still need to turn on the SSH agent inside 1Password (Settings > Developer > Use the SSH agent); the script reports whether it is listening.

Using WSL? Then this section is not for you - run the linux track (make) inside your WSL distro and leave the Windows side alone.

Environment variables outside your shell

windows/bootstrap.ps1 persists DOTFILES_DIR and XDG_CONFIG_HOME as user environment variables rather than setting them only in the PowerShell profile, so processes that never load that profile still see them. XDG_CONFIG_HOME matters most: XDG-aware tools honour it, and the GitHub CLI is one of them — with it set, gh auth login writes to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gh/hosts.yml rather than %AppData%\GitHub CLI, so a shell without the variable would report you as logged out.

mise tools outside your shell

mise activate only reaches interactive shells. dotfiles/.zshenv also puts mise's shims directory on PATH, and windows/bootstrap.ps1 adds it to the Windows user PATH, so tools declared in config/mise/config.toml work in scripts, editor tasks and anything else that does not source your shell rc. Interactive shells still prefer the real binaries that mise activate puts ahead of the shims.

Post-Install

After installation is done, have a think about running the below additional config items:

Git config

Configure your local git identity

git config --global user.name "your name"
git config --global user.email "your@email.com"
git config --global github.user "your-github-username"

Install dev tools with MISE

If you need node or python, install them with MISE. Check out the MISE doco for the full details, but here are a couple of my common examples

mise use --global node@lts

# This will install multiple versions along side each other and set up version specific commands
mise use --global python@3.12 python@3.11 python@3.10

Credits

Definitely go and check out Lars Kappert's dotfiles repo which is where I got the makefile approach and a bunch of the cool helpers here from, as well as the DotFiles Community too for more resources.