My Mac Development setup

My Mac Development setup
This is the process that I follow to setup environment in a MacOS system. These steps are mainly focused on creating a development environment with all the dependencies needed for web and mobile development. But it also comes with my favourite apps and configuration that is focused on using your Mac with pure keyboard.

Prerequisites

Bootstrap
This single command installs Homebrew, core tooling (coreutils curl git mise stow), clones the dotfiles repo into ~/dotfiles, and symlinks the configs via GNU Stow.

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FeernandoOFF/dotfiles/master/scripts/setup.sh)"

You will need to add homebrew to your zshrcPATH

ZSH
Sets up oh-my-zsh, powerlevel10k and zsh-syntax-highlighting (run after the bootstrap has cloned the repo).

~/dotfiles/scripts/zsh.sh

Basics

The bootstrap command above installs the following dependencies along with a dotfiles folder located at your home directory, it comes with configurations for many other apps that I use and I’ll be covering it as I walk trough this guide.

1. Brew
2. Mise
3. Dotfiles
4. OhMyZSH

Development Workspace

Editors & Apps

• NeoVim : General Text/Code editor
• XCode : iOS development IDE.
• Jetbrains IDEs : IDE for Android Development, installed trough Jetbrains toolbox.
• Ghostty: Is a terminal emulator, replacement for the terminal app.
• Herdr : Terminal multiplexor and what I use NeoVim with
• Yazi : Terminal-based file navigator.
• Lazygit : A terminal git client.Useful to quickly visualise and perform git operations
• LazyDocker : A terminal docker client.Useful to easely manage containers.
• FZF: A Fuzzy finder for locating files on a whole OS

~/dotfiles/scripts/terminal_apps.sh

Tools

• Python
• Golang
• Podman
• Wasmer - WebAssembly
• zoxide

~/dotfiles/scripts/tools.sh

Configuring Apps

cd ~/dotfiles && make stow

Stow-managed: zsh, tmux, nvim, zellij, ghostty, lazygit, herdr, ideavim.

Manual imports (see repo README): Raycast, JetBrains, Xcode, Warp, Obsidian, Vimium.

Mac-Specific

Mac enhancement

Although MacOS is a great system and comes with good enough defaults, I have my preferences that can be divided in two parts, the first is default settings on the general OS, and the second are apps that affect OS-wide, like change the launcher or window manager.

Settings

This section focuses on modifying the default values from macOS to suit my preferences. The following script will affect these areas:

• Dock: We will set an autohide
• Finder: Show path (View → Show Path)
• Fonts: Install Fira core & Jetbrains

~/dotfiles/scripts/mac_defaults.sh

Apps

As I mentioned before macOS comes with good defaults, but there are apps that are primordial for my workflow to work properly, these are the following apps.

• Raycast : Raycast is a replacement to spotlight that offers a huge amount of plugins and keyboard navigation.

{
    "description": "Hyper Key: map Caps Lock to Shift-Command-Control (Escape if alone)",
    "manipulators": [
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "caps_lock",
                "modifiers": { "optional": ["any"] }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "left_shift",
                    "modifiers": ["left_command", "left_control"]
                }
            ],
            "to_if_alone": [{ "key_code": "escape" }],
            "type": "basic"
        }
    ]
}

• Homerow: Homerow allows you to use Vim Motions in the whole OS.
• Proton Pass : I use ProtonPass as my password manager, but also as my SSH key storage, so it will be needed for any ssh-related credentials
• Zen Browser : After arc got deprecated I use zen as my main browser
• Ice: Hide items on your bar

~/dotfiles/scripts/mac_apps.sh

Extra apps

For extra apps, you can refer to my Apps, on the MacOS section. Where I list all the apps that I use on my device, not only for development, but also for design and other use cases.
Also you can dive deep in each specific app and see my configuration.
Some that are not worth to be included are:

• IntelliJ Toolbox
• Podman
• NordVPN

Keybindings

For a comprehensive list of how I use this software almost fully on keyboard, please see:

• My Keybindings
• How to switch between different IDEs with a single shortcut in MacOS and Raycast
• Optimising Video with Apple Shortcuts in MacOS