// the find
mathiasbynens/dotfiles
:wrench: .files, including ~/.macos — sensible hacker defaults for macOS
A collection of one person's macOS/shell dotfiles (bash config, .macos defaults script, brew.sh installer) that thousands of people have forked as a starting point for their own setup. It's for developers setting up a new Mac who want a documented reference to steal from, not a plug-and-play tool.
- The .macos script is extensively commented — each `defaults write` line explains what the setting actually does, which makes it useful as documentation even if you never run it
- bootstrap.sh and the git-free tarball install path both work, and updating is a single re-run of the same command
- brew.sh separates formula installation from dotfile deployment, so you can adopt pieces independently instead of an all-or-nothing install
- No tests, no CI — there's no way to know a given commit doesn't break `source bootstrap.sh` on current macOS until you run it on your own machine
- The README's own warning ('fork it, review the code, remove things you don't want') is really an admission that this isn't designed to be installed as-is; it's a reference implementation, not a product
- Last push is over a year old, and macOS defaults keys drift between OS versions, so some of the .macos toggles will silently no-op or need updating on recent macOS releases
- Everything lives in flat top-level files (.aliases, .functions, .exports) with no module boundaries, so picking just the 10% you want means manually diffing rather than composing