dotfiles

sloria's dotfiles, rewritten as Ansible roles. Sets up my local and remote development environments with a single command. Supports macOS and OrbStack VMs running Debian.

a few neat features

• zsh configured with prezto.
• python managed with uv
• neovim/lazyvim
• pluggable. Everything is optional. Fork this. Remove what you don't use. Configure what you do use.
• manages cross-platform packages and macOS-only packages
• useful git aliases
• idempotency, thanks to Ansible
• optional support for provisioning OrbStack VMs

prerequisites

• homebrew (If on macOS) - Install this first
• git: brew install git
• ansible >= 1.6: brew install ansible

install

• Fork this repo.
• Clone your fork.

# Replace git url with your fork
# NOTE: It is important that you clone to ~/dotfiles
git clone https://github.com/YOU/dotfiles.git ~/dotfiles
cd ~/dotfiles

• Update the following variables in group_vars/all.yaml (at a minimum)
  • git_name: Your name, which will be attached to commit messages, e.g. "Steven Loria"
  • git_email: Your git email address.

configure what gets installed

cross platform packages

Cross-platform utilities that get can be installed by package managers (homebrew, apt) go in group_vars/all.yaml. Edit utilities_packages:

utilities_packages:
  - curl
  - wget
  # ...

macOS-only packages and apps

macOS-only packages to install with homebrew go in either group_vars/local.yaml (for local installation) or group_vars/remote.yaml (for the mac mini). Edit mac_homebrew_packages and mac_cask_packages.

mac_homebrew_packages:
  - wifi-password
  - qrtool
  # ...

mac_cask_packages:
  - 1password
  # ...

roles

roles encapsulate installation of tools as well as related shell scripts (for setting environment variables, aliases, functions, completion).

Add and edit roles in the roles/ directory and their corresponding entry in provision.yaml as you see fit.

run the install script

After configuring the packages you want, run dot-local, a shell script that thinly wraps ansible run.

./bin/dot-local

authenticating with github

You won't be able to push to repos until you authenticate with GitHub. You can use gh for this, which should have been installed by dot-bootstrap above.

gh auth login
gh auth setup-git

updating your local environment

Once you have the dotfiles installed you can run the following command to rerun the ansible playbook:

dot-local

You can optionally pass role names

dot-local git python

creating and provisioning OrbStack VMs

dot-vm mybox
# Creates an debian VM called "mybox"

To SSH:

ssh mybox

updating your dotfiles repo

To keep your fork up to date with the sloria fork:

git remote add sloria https://github.com/sloria/dotfiles.git
git pull sloria master

commands

There are three main commands in the bin directory for setting up and updating development environments:

• dot-local: sets up local environment
• dot-remote: sets up remote environment
• dot-vm: creates and provisions OrbStack VMs

special files

All configuration is done in ~/dotfiles. Each role may contain (in addition to the typical ansible directories and files) a number of special files

• role/*.zsh: Any files ending in .zsh get loaded into your environment.
• bin/: Anything in bin/ will get added to your $PATH and be made available everywhere.

notes

vscode

Use built-in Settings Sync to sync VSCode settings.

macOS keyboard settings

There are a few keyboard customizations that must be done manually:

• System Settings > Keyboard > Turn "Key repeat rate" and "Delay until repeat" to their highest settings.

• System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Modifier Keys > Change Caps Lock key to Control.

mac mini

I also use this repo to configure my Mac Mini server which I have running in headless mode. My setup is documented in docs/MAC_MINI.md.

troubleshooting

If you get an error about Xcode command-line tools, you may need to run

sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

license

MIT Licensed.