dotfiles

An installer script for Homebrew, other system dependencies, and important configuration files

Prerequisites

• A UNIX-ish operating system, one of:
  • macOS
    • tested on Sequoia 15.7.8
  • Bazzite
    • tested on bazzite-nvidia-open 44.20260907.0
  • Fedora CoreOS
    • tested on stable 44.20260817.3.2
  • Debian
    • tested on trixie in Visual Studio Code's Development Containers
  • Others (untested)
• Bash
• curl (for automatic bootstrapping)
• git (for manual installation)
• On Linux, all Homebrew system requirements

Bash and curl are pre-installed on macOS.

Install

The installer script installs Homebrew, clones this repository to ~/.dotfiles, links important configuration files ("dotfiles") into their respective locations, installs additional system dependencies using Homebrew Bundle, and performs automated system configuration changes.

Automatic Boostrapping

Run the following command to download and execute the bootstrap script.

bash <(curl -fsSL https://github.com/jarrodldavis/dotfiles/raw/main/install.bash)

Manual Installation

You can manually clone this repository and run the install.bash script from that repository.

git clone https://github.com/jarrodldavis/dotfiles.git ~/.dotfiles

cd ~/.dotfiles

./install.bash

Alternatively, you can copy the contents of install.bash to a file on disk and run it using bash ./install.bash.

Important

The installer script always clones this repository to ~/.dotfiles, even if it was manually cloned to a different location.

Options

All installer options are specified as environment variables. The presence of an environment variable with a non-empty value enables the corresponding option; the option is disabled otherwise.

DOTFILES_REINSTALL=1 DOTFILES_SKIP_MAS=1 ./install.bash

Warning

The installer script only checks for any non-empty value in an environment variable, so even typically "falsy" values like 0 or NO will enable the option.

DOTFILES_REINSTALL

Force the removal and reinstallation of Homebrew and all Homebrew Formulae.

Homebrew Casks are not fully removed, but will be adopted or overwritten upon reinstallation. Visual Studio Code extensions will not be removed, but any missing extensions will be installed.

DOTFILES_SKIP_MAS

On macOS, skip installation of Mac App Store (mas) dependencies.

DOTFILES_HELPERS_ONLY

An internal option used by other scripts. Short-circuits the installer so that common helpers can be sourced by other scripts for consistent logging output and installation target selection.

Maintenance

Note

These maintenance actions are performed automatically before each commit using a git pre-commit hook.

Homebrew

Homebrew Bundle is used to record the CLI tools (Homebrew Formulae), GUI applications (Homebrew Casks, Flatpaks, and Mac App Store apps), and Visual Studio Code extensions that should be installed. To record the installation or removal of these system dependencies, update the appropriate system-specific *.Brewfile manifest using ~/.dotfiles/scripts/maintenance/update-homebrew-bundle.bash.

Global .gitignore

configs/gitignore can be updated to use the latest templates from github/gitignore using ~/.dotfiles/scripts/maintenance/update-global-gitignore.bash.

ShellCheck

All shell scripts can be linted with ShellCheck using ~/.dotfiles/scripts/maintenance/shellcheck-all.bash.