Dotfiles

Personal dotfiles managed with GNU Stow

Tools to Install

The following packages need to be installed for the configurations to work properly:

• eza: Modern replacement for ls
• fzf: Fuzzy finder
• bat: Cat clone with syntax highlighting
• fish: Fish shell
• zsh: Z shell
• tmux: Terminal multiplexer
• ghostty: Terminal emulator
• wezterm: Terminal emulator
• starship: Cross-shell prompt
• lazygit: Terminal UI for git
• pyenv: Python version manager
• aerospace: Aerospace window manager for macos

Install all tools:

brew install eza fzf bat fish zsh tmux ghostty wezterm starship lazygit pyenv
brew install --cask nikitabobko/tap/aerospace

If You Already Have Existing Dotfiles

If your configs already exist in your home directory:

1. Backup your current configs:

   mkdir -p ~/.config/backups/pre-stow
   cp ~/.zshrc ~/.tmux.conf ~/.config/backups/pre-stow/ 2>/dev/null || true
   cp ~/.config/starship.toml ~/.config/backups/pre-stow/ 2>/dev/null || true

2. Remove existing configs:

   rm ~/.zshrc ~/.tmux.conf ~/.config/starship.toml

3. Then proceed with stow (see step 5 below)

Prerequisites

Install Homebrew (if not already installed):

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Installation on a New System

1. Clone this repository

git clone https://github.com/PrajwalChigod/dotfiles.git ~/dotfiles
cd ~/dotfiles

Need not be this location as mentioned above. You can set this up in any location you wish.

2. Install required packages

# Install GNU Stow
brew install stow

# Install all applications
brew install eza fzf bat fish zsh tmux ghostty wezterm starship lazygit pyenv
brew install --cask nikitabobko/tap/aerospace

3. Backup and remove existing dotfiles

# Backup existing configs (optional but recommended)
mkdir -p ~/dotfiles-backup
cp ~/.zshrc ~/dotfiles-backup/ 2>/dev/null || true # Perform the same for rest of your config

# Remove existing configs (stow will fail if these exist)
rm -f ~/.zshrc ~/.tmux.conf # Perform the same for rest of config that present in root structure
rm -rf ~/.config/fish # Perform same step for the rest of the .config/ folder

4. Set up Fish shell (if using Fish)

# Find the fish path
which fish

# Add fish to allowed shells
echo /opt/homebrew/bin/fish | sudo tee -a /etc/shells

# Change default shell to fish
chsh -s /opt/homebrew/bin/fish

# Restart terminal and verify
echo $SHELL

# Install fisher (fish plugin manager)
curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jorgebucaran/fisher/main/functions/fisher.fish | source && fisher install jorgebucaran/fisher

# Install all fish essential plugins
fisher install PatrickF1/fzf.fish
fisher install jethrokuan/z
fisher install jorgebucaran/autopair.fish
fisher install franciscolourenco/done
fisher install PatrickF1/colored_man_pages.fish
fisher install jhillyerd/plugin-git

5. Deploy dotfiles using Stow

If your git managed dotfiles is not a parent directory, for ex: instead of ~/dotfiles/ , If you have structure like ~/some_dirname/dotfiles/ then your stow command needs to be

stow -d ~/Projects/dotfiles -t ~ appname

# From the dotfiles directory, run:
stow zsh
stow fish
stow tmux
stow bat
stow ghostty
stow starship
stow wezterm
stow aerospace

# Or deploy all at once:
stow */

6. Verify installation

Check that symlinks are created:

ls -la ~/.zshrc ~/.tmux.conf
ls -la ~/.config/fish ~/.config/starship.toml

You should see symlinks (->) pointing to your dotfiles repo.

Managing Dotfiles

Add new config

1. Create directory structure: mkdir -p appname/.config/appname
2. Copy config file maintaining home directory structure
3. Run: stow appname

Remove config

stow -D appname

Update config

Just edit the files in this repo - changes reflect immediately via symlinks