Dotfiles

A big thank you to Tobi, the supreme guide of dotfiles, for the inspiration and advice. https://github.com/this-is-tobi/dotfiles

Personal macOS dotfiles and setup scripts.

Quick Start

Fresh macOS install (remote)

# Full install — all profiles, dotfiles, completions
bash <(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/KevinDeBenedetti/dotfiles/main/osx/init.sh) -a

The script automatically clones the repository into a temporary directory if not found locally, then re-executes from there.

Usage

# Full install (all profiles + dotfiles + completions + cleanup)
./osx/init.sh -a

# Full install in lite mode (skip optional/heavy packages)
./osx/init.sh -a -l

# Selective profiles
./osx/init.sh -p "base,javascript" -d -c

# Link dotfiles only
./osx/init.sh -d

Flags

Flag	Description
-a	Full install: all profiles + dotfiles + completions + tmp cleanup
-p <profiles>	Comma-separated list of profiles to install
-d	Link dotfiles into $HOME (symlinks, with automatic backup)
-c	Install zsh CLI completions
-l	Lite mode — skip optional/heavy packages
-r	Remove the bootstrap temp directory after install
-h	Print help

At least one flag is required. Running the script without any flag prints help and exits.

Profiles

Profile	Tools
base	fzf, proto, sshs, cheat, yq, tree, watch, rsync, Docker, browsers, gh, lazygit, lazydocker
javascript	node, npm via proto + bun, pnpm, yarn, @antfu/ni
python	python via proto + uv, ruff, ipython, httpie
ai	Ollama, GitHub Copilot CLI
extras	VLC, Spotify, Audacity, Discord, Transmission…

Dotfiles linking

Running -d symlinks config files from the repo into $HOME. Any existing file is backed up first (e.g. ~/.zshrc.bak.20260303) before being replaced.

Source (repo)	Target ($HOME)	Method
dotfiles/.zshrc	~/.zshrc	copy¹
dotfiles/.gitconfig	~/.gitconfig	symlink
dotfiles/.prototools	~/.proto/.prototools	symlink
dotfiles/.oh-my-zsh/*.zsh-theme	~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/themes/	symlink
dotfiles/.config/*	~/.config/	symlink
dotfiles/.vscode/settings.json	~/Library/Application Support/Code/User/settings.json	symlink
dotfiles/.vscode/mcp.json	~/Library/Application Support/Code/User/mcp.json	symlink

¹ .zshrc is copied (not symlinked) because the install script applies machine-specific patches to it (gsed alias, arm64 Homebrew paths).

Local overrides

On first run with -d, three stub files are created automatically. They are gitignored and never committed — fill them in with machine-specific config:

File	Purpose
~/.zshrc.local	Aliases, exports, path additions — sourced last in .zshrc
~/.gitconfig.local	Override [user] email, signing key, etc. — loaded via [include]
~/.config/dotfiles/env.local.sh	Secrets and env vars (API keys, tokens) — sourced after env.sh

Example ~/.gitconfig.local:

[user]
    email = work@company.com
    signingkey = ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

Example ~/.config/dotfiles/env.local.sh:

export CONTEXT7_API_KEY="your-real-key-here"