dotfiles

My Mac development environment. I write Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, and Go — this is the setup I've landed on after a lot of research and strong opinions.

Everything is managed by chezmoi and can be deployed to a fresh Mac with one command.

Quick Start

Fresh Mac

# Install Homebrew
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"

# Pull dotfiles and install everything
brew install chezmoi
chezmoi init --apply dhruvtv
brew bundle --file=~/.Brewfile
fnm install 24 && fnm default 24

Restart your terminal. Done.

Keeping it updated

chezmoi update    # Pull latest dotfiles
brew bundle       # Sync packages
brew upgrade      # Update tools + Go

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Shell

zsh + Starship prompt with two plugins: autosuggestions and syntax highlighting. No framework (no Oh-My-Zsh, no Prezto). Starship is written in Rust, works across shells, and is actively maintained.

Completions are lazy-loaded on first Tab press to keep shell init under 40ms. Both expand-or-complete and complete-word widgets are hooked so that fzf's Tab fallback triggers the lazy init correctly.

The prompt shows your current directory, git branch/status, active language versions, and command duration — all in Catppuccin Mocha colors with Nerd Font icons.

Theme

Catppuccin Mocha for dark mode, Gruvbox Light for light mode. Ghostty switches automatically based on macOS appearance. Prompt, git diffs, and editor follow the dark theme — Catppuccin has ports for literally everything, so consistency is easy.

Font: JetBrains Mono Nerd Font. Ligatures for code, icons for Starship and eza.

Terminal

Ghostty as the daily driver. Native macOS app, GPU-accelerated, zero input lag. Created by Mitchell Hashimoto (HashiCorp co-founder).

iTerm2 stays installed for Claude Code Agent Teams — it's the only terminal besides tmux that supports split panes for multi-agent sessions.

Python

I use the Astral tools for everything Python:

uv — package manager, project manager, Python version manager, virtual environment manager. One tool that replaces pip, poetry, pyenv, and virtualenv.

# Start a new project
uv init my-api --python 3.13
cd my-api

# Add dependencies
uv add fastapi uvicorn
uv add --dev ruff pytest

# Run it
uv run uvicorn main:app --reload

# Run a one-off tool without installing it globally
uvx ruff check .
uvx pytest

# Install a specific Python version
uv python install 3.12

Ruff — linter and formatter. Replaces flake8, black, isort in one binary.

uv run ruff check .        # Lint
uv run ruff check --fix .  # Lint and auto-fix
uv run ruff format .       # Format (like black)

Everything is configured in pyproject.toml. One file for dependencies, linting rules, formatting, project metadata.

JavaScript / TypeScript

Node.js 24 (latest) managed by fnm. Bun for fast package installs and scripting.

# Node version management
fnm install 22          # Install Node 22
fnm use 22              # Switch to it
fnm default 24          # Set global default
# Auto-switches when you cd into a dir with .node-version or .nvmrc

# Package management — I use Bun for speed
bun init                # New project
bun add express         # Add a dependency
bun add -d typescript   # Add a dev dependency
bun install             # Install from package.json (way faster than npm)
bun run dev             # Run scripts from package.json

# Or use npm/npx if you prefer, Node is right there
npm install
npx create-next-app@latest

Go

Go installed via Homebrew, updated with brew upgrade. No version manager needed — Go's toolchain directive in go.mod handles per-project versions automatically since Go 1.21.

golangci-lint for linting. Runs 100+ linters in parallel with caching so it's fast on repeat runs.

# Start a new module
mkdir my-service && cd my-service
go mod init github.com/dhruvtv/my-service

# Add dependencies
go get github.com/gin-gonic/gin
go get github.com/jackc/pgx/v5

# Build and run
go build ./...
go run .

# Test with race detection
go test -race ./...

# Lint (runs 100+ linters in parallel)
golangci-lint run

# Check for known vulnerabilities
go install golang.org/x/vuln/cmd/govulncheck@latest
govulncheck ./...

I keep a .golangci.yml in each project to configure which linters to enable beyond the defaults. Good ones to turn on: gocritic, gosec, exhaustive, nilerr, errcheck.

gopls (the official language server) ships with the VS Code Go extension and handles completions, diagnostics, and refactoring.

Git

delta for syntax-highlighted, side-by-side diffs. It's configured as the default git pager so it just works — every git diff, git log -p, git show gets the treatment automatically.

Other nice defaults in the gitconfig:

• push.autoSetupRemote = true — no more --set-upstream origin my-branch
• pull.rebase = true — cleaner merge history
• merge.conflictstyle = zdiff3 — shows the original text in conflict markers

# These aliases are in .zshrc
gs          # git status
gd          # git diff (now with delta's syntax highlighting)
gl          # git log --oneline -20
lg          # lazygit (full TUI for git)

# Pretty git log graph (alias in .gitconfig)
git lg

CLI Tools

Classic Unix tools replaced with faster, friendlier alternatives. All aliased so you don't have to remember new names:

ls          # → eza (colors, git status, icons)
ll          # → eza -la --git --icons (detailed listing)
tree        # → eza --tree --icons
cat         # → bat (syntax highlighting only, clean for copy-paste)
grep        # → ripgrep (faster, respects .gitignore)
find        # → fd (simpler syntax, faster)
diff        # → delta (syntax-highlighted diffs)
lg          # → lazygit (TUI for git)
j           # → just (command runner)

Some examples:

# zoxide — smart cd that learns your habits
z dev       # Jumps to ~/Developer (or whatever matches "dev")
z my-api    # Jumps to the most-visited dir matching "my-api"
zi          # Interactive fuzzy directory picker

# fzf — fuzzy finder for everything
ctrl+r      # Fuzzy search command history
ctrl+t      # Fuzzy find files
alt+c       # Fuzzy cd into subdirectories

# bat — cat with syntax highlighting
cat main.py               # Syntax-highlighted, no decorations
bat main.py               # Full view with line numbers and border

# fd — find files
find "*.py"               # Find all Python files
find "test" --type d      # Find directories named "test"

# lazygit — TUI for git
lg                        # Opens full git TUI (staging, committing, rebasing, browsing)

Dotfile Management

chezmoi tracks everything in this repo.

# Add a new dotfile to tracking
chezmoi add ~/.some-config

# Edit a tracked file
chezmoi edit ~/.zshrc

# See what would change
chezmoi diff

# Apply changes
chezmoi apply

# Push updates
chezmoi cd    # Drops you into this repo
git add -A && git commit -m "update" && git push

What's in the Brewfile

The full list of packages is in .Brewfile, but the highlights:

• Dev tools: uv, ruff, fnm, golangci-lint, gh (GitHub CLI), docker
• CLI upgrades: eza, bat, fd, ripgrep, zoxide, fzf, lazygit, delta, just, yq, tldr
• Shell: starship, zsh-autosuggestions, zsh-syntax-highlighting
• Media: ffmpeg, yt-dlp, tesseract (OCR)
• Runtimes: node, go, python, bun, deno

Files

~/.zshrc                        Shell config (prompt, plugins, aliases)
~/.zprofile                     Homebrew init
~/.gitconfig                    Git config (delta, aliases, defaults)
~/.config/starship.toml         Starship prompt
~/.config/ghostty/config        Ghostty terminal
~/.Brewfile                     Homebrew packages

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Built on Valentine's Day 2026 with help from Claude Code.