These are my dotfiles I've maintained over the last 12 years. They originally started as a fork of thoughtbot's dotfiles.

I've tried to write these dotfiles as a learning resource for others looking for to dive deep and customize their own.

I've since taken inspiration from other dotfiles:

• https://github.com/CharlesChiuGit/nvimdots.lua
• https://github.com/LazyVim/LazyVim
• https://github.com/LunarVim/LunarVim/tree/master

These dotfiles use rcm to create system links from ~/dotfiles to your $HOME folder. System linking these files makes it easy to add or remove configs and keep them updated from one place.

The dotfiles are split between my two primary setups:

1. Arch Linux with i3 desktop
2. Mac M3

rcm has a tagged and host based dotfiles feature that lets you install part of your dotfiles. General configuration is in all root folders except those with a tag- or host- prefix. Those are installed with -t or -B flags when you run the rcup command (see below).

You can find more info about this with man rcm after you install rcm.

Specific configuration for each setup is located in the host-linux and host-macos folders.

These are some highlights, not a full description.

neovim configuration:

• Fully custom Lua based configs

tmux configuration:

• Improve color resolution.
• Remove administrative debris (session name, hostname, time) in status bar.
• Set prefix to Ctrl+s
• Soften status bar color from harsh green to light gray.

git configuration:

• Adds a create-branch alias to create feature branches.
• Adds a delete-branch alias to delete feature branches.
• Adds a merge-branch alias to merge feature branches into master.
• Adds an up alias to fetch and rebase origin/master into the feature branch. Use git up -i for interactive rebases.
• Adds post-{checkout,commit,merge} hooks to re-index your ctags.
• Adds pre-commit and prepare-commit-msg stubs that delegate to your local config.
• Adds trust-bin alias to append a project's bin/ directory to $PATH.

Dynamic color scheming across apps with flavours

• alacritty: OpenGL based terminal in Rust
• conky: High level system stats on desktop
• dunst: Notifications
• feh: Sets wallpaper
• firefox
• flavours: Dynamic theming
• i3: Tiling window manager desktop environment
• i3-scrot: Screenshot utility for i3
• mise: Programming language manager
• neovim
• polybar: Customizable topbar for i3
• ranger: Vim based file navigation
• rcm: manage dotfiles with system links
• rofi: Configurable launcher
• tmux: Terminal multiplexer

You can find all dependencies listed in the Brewfile

Set zsh as your login shell:

chsh -s $(which zsh)

Clone onto your laptop:

git clone git://github.com/nolantait/dotfiles.git ~/dotfiles

Install rcm:

# On macos:
brew install rcm

# On linux:
pacman -S rcm

Install the dotfiles:

env RCRC=$HOME/dotfiles/rcrc rcup -t git -t nvim

Install for a specific host-:

env RCRC=$HOME/dotfiles/rcrc rcup -B linux -t git -t nvim
env RCRC=$HOME/dotfiles/rcrc rcup -B macos -t git -t nvim

After the initial installation, you can run rcup without the one-time variable RCRC being set (rcup will symlink the repo's rcrc to ~/.rcrc for future runs of rcup). See example.

This command will create symlinks for config files in your home directory. Setting the RCRC environment variable tells rcup to use standard configuration options:

• Give precedence to personal overrides which by default are placed in ~/dotfiles-local
• Please configure the rcrc file if you'd like to make personal overrides in a different directory

From time to time you should pull down any updates to these dotfiles, and run

rcup -t git -t nvim

to link any new files and install new vim plugins. Note You must run rcup after pulling to ensure that all files in plugins are properly installed, but you can safely run rcup multiple times so update early and update often!

Create a directory for your personal customizations:

mkdir ~/dotfiles-local

Put your customizations in ~/dotfiles-local appended with .local:

• ~/dotfiles-local/aliases.local
• ~/dotfiles-local/git_template.local/*
• ~/dotfiles-local/gitconfig.local
• ~/dotfiles-local/psqlrc.local (we supply a blank .psqlrc.local to prevent psql from throwing an error, but you should overwrite the file with your own copy)
• ~/dotfiles-local/tmux.conf.local
• ~/dotfiles-local/zshrc.local
• ~/dotfiles-local/zsh/configs/*

For example, your ~/dotfiles-local/aliases.local might look like this:

# Productivity
alias todo='$EDITOR ~/.todo'

Your ~/dotfiles-local/gitconfig.local might look like this:

[alias]
  l = log --pretty=colored
[pretty]
  colored = format:%Cred%h%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)%an%Creset
[user]
  name = Joe Blow
  email = joe.b@inhouse.work

To extend your git hooks, create executable scripts in ~/dotfiles-local/git_template.local/hooks/* files.

Your ~/dotfiles-local/zshrc.local might look like this:

# load pyenv if available
if which pyenv &>/dev/null ; then
  eval "$(pyenv init -)"
fi

Additional zsh configuration can go under the ~/dotfiles-local/zsh/configs directory. This has two special sub-directories:

1. pre for files that must be loaded first
2. post for files that must be loaded last.

For example, ~/dotfiles-local/zsh/configs/pre/virtualenv makes use of various shell features which may be affected by your settings, so load it first:

# Load the virtualenv wrapper
. /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh

Setting a key binding can happen in ~/dotfiles-local/zsh/configs/keys:

# Grep anywhere with ^G
bindkey -s '^G' ' | grep '

Some changes, like chpwd, must happen in ~/dotfiles-local/zsh/configs/post/chpwd:

# Show the entries in a directory whenever you cd in
function chpwd {
  ls
}

This directory is handy for combining dotfiles from multiple teams; one team can add the virtualenv file, another keys, and a third chpwd.

The ~/dotfiles-local/zshrc.local is loaded after ~/dotfiles-local/zsh/configs.