Bootstrap a new machine

One-liner

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cadebrown/dotfiles/main/bootstrap.sh | bash

Or from a clone:

git clone https://github.com/cadebrown/dotfiles ~/dotfiles
~/dotfiles/bootstrap.sh

No sudo required on either platform. The script detects the OS and runs the right steps.

macOS

Requirements

What gets installed

1. chezmoi → ~/.local/$PLAT/bin/chezmoi
2. Dotfiles applied via chezmoi apply — prompts for name + email on first run
3. oh-my-zsh + plugins (pure prompt, autosuggestions, fast-syntax-highlighting, completions)
4. Homebrew → /opt/homebrew (Apple Silicon) or /usr/local (Intel)
5. Packages from packages/Brewfile — CLI tools, casks, macOS services
6. colima registered as a login service (rootless Docker runtime)
7. Node.js via nvm → ~/.local/$PLAT/nvm/
8. Rust via rustup → ~/.local/$PLAT/rustup/, cargo tools → ~/.local/$PLAT/cargo/
9. Python via uv → ~/.local/$PLAT/venv/
10. Claude Code via Homebrew cask + plugins + MCP servers

Linux

Requirements

No sudo is needed after the initial Docker/Podman setup. Packages install inside a manylinux_2_28 container (AlmaLinux 8, glibc 2.28) — most pour as precompiled bottles; Homebrew bundles its own glibc so the binaries are self-contained on any host.

Docker (rootless)

Rootless Docker runs entirely as your user — no root daemon.

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com/rootless | sh
export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
export DOCKER_HOST="unix://$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/docker.sock"
systemctl --user enable --now docker

Full docs: docs.docker.com/engine/security/rootless

Podman (rootless)

Podman is rootless by design — no daemon, no sudo.

apt install podman    # Debian/Ubuntu (may need sudo once)
dnf install podman    # RHEL/Fedora
which podman          # HPC clusters: often already available

The bootstrap script checks for docker first, then podman. Either works.

What gets installed

1. chezmoi → ~/.local/$PLAT/bin/chezmoi
2. Dotfiles applied via chezmoi apply
3. oh-my-zsh + plugins
4. Homebrew → ~/.local/$PLAT/brew/ (inside manylinux container; casks skipped)
5. Node.js via nvm → ~/.local/$PLAT/nvm/
6. Rust via rustup → ~/.local/$PLAT/rustup/, ~/.local/$PLAT/cargo/
7. Python via uv → ~/.local/$PLAT/venv/
8. Claude Code native binary → ~/.local/$PLAT/bin/claude + plugins + MCP servers

First run takes ~10 minutes (glibc and a few others compile from source). Subsequent runs skip already-installed packages.

Skipping steps

Any step can be skipped with an environment variable:

INSTALL_PACKAGES=0   # skip Homebrew + brew bundle
INSTALL_ZSH=0        # skip oh-my-zsh
INSTALL_NODE=0       # skip nvm + Node.js
INSTALL_RUST=0       # skip rustup + cargo tools
INSTALL_PYTHON=0     # skip uv + venv
INSTALL_CLAUDE=0     # skip Claude Code plugins + MCP servers

Example — skip everything except dotfiles:

INSTALL_PACKAGES=0 INSTALL_ZSH=0 INSTALL_NODE=0 \
INSTALL_RUST=0 INSTALL_PYTHON=0 INSTALL_CLAUDE=0 \
~/dotfiles/bootstrap.sh

First-run prompts

chezmoi asks for display name and email once. Values are cached in ~/.config/chezmoi/chezmoi.toml. To skip the prompts, pre-seed them:

CHEZMOI_NAME="Your Name" CHEZMOI_EMAIL="you@example.com" ~/dotfiles/bootstrap.sh

To re-prompt (e.g. after changing email): chezmoi init --data=false

Shared home directories

If two machines share a home directory (NFS), run bootstrap.sh independently on each:

• chezmoi finds the cached config — no prompts the second time
• Dotfiles are already applied — no changes needed
• All tool installs use ~/.local/$PLAT/, so each machine gets its own arch-specific binaries without conflict

All tools installed here (Homebrew bottles, rustup, uv, nvm) ship self-contained binaries — they don’t link against the host glibc — so different glibc versions on the same arch are not a problem.