My Dotfiles, Explained

Every developer's machine is different. Here's what I use and why.

Shell — zsh

My .zshrc is short. I don't use frameworks like oh-my-zsh — just a few lines:

export EDITOR="nvim"
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$HOME/go/bin:$PATH"

# History
HISTSIZE=50000
SAVEHIST=50000
setopt SHARE_HISTORY
setopt HIST_IGNORE_DUPS

# Prompt
autoload -Uz vcs_info
precmd() { vcs_info }
zstyle ':vcs_info:git:*' formats ' %b'
PROMPT='%F{blue}%~%f%F{yellow}${vcs_info_msg_0_}%f %F{magenta}❯%f '

# Aliases
alias g="git"
alias gs="git status -sb"
alias gd="git diff"
alias gl="git log --oneline -20"
alias ll="ls -la"
alias ..="cd .."
alias ...="cd ../.."

Editor — Neovim

Minimal init.lua:

vim.g.mapleader = " "
vim.opt.number = true
vim.opt.relativenumber = true
vim.opt.tabstop = 4
vim.opt.shiftwidth = 4
vim.opt.expandtab = true
vim.opt.smartindent = true
vim.opt.wrap = false
vim.opt.ignorecase = true
vim.opt.smartcase = true
vim.opt.termguicolors = true
vim.opt.signcolumn = "yes"
vim.opt.clipboard = "unnamedplus"

-- Lazy.nvim bootstrap
local lazypath = vim.fn.stdpath("data") .. "/lazy/lazy.nvim"
if not vim.loop.fs_stat(lazypath) then
    vim.fn.system({
        "git", "clone", "--filter=blob:none",
        "https://github.com/folke/lazy.nvim.git",
        "--branch=stable", lazypath,
    })
end
vim.opt.rtp:prepend(lazypath)

require("lazy").setup({
    { "catppuccin/nvim", name = "catppuccin", priority = 1000 },
    { "nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter", build = ":TSUpdate" },
    { "nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim", dependencies = { "nvim-lua/plenary.nvim" } },
    { "lewis6991/gitsigns.nvim", config = true },
})

vim.cmd.colorscheme("catppuccin")

-- Keymaps
vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>ff", "<cmd>Telescope find_files<cr>")
vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>fg", "<cmd>Telescope live_grep<cr>")
vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>fb", "<cmd>Telescope buffers<cr>")

Git

.gitconfig:

[user]
    name = Your Name
    email = you@example.com

[init]
    defaultBranch = main

[push]
    autoSetupRemote = true

[pull]
    rebase = true

[alias]
    co = checkout
    br = branch
    ci = commit
    st = status -sb
    lg = log --graph --oneline --decorate -20
    undo = reset --soft HEAD~1
    amend = commit --amend --no-edit

[core]
    editor = nvim
    pager = delta

[delta]
    navigate = true
    side-by-side = true
    line-numbers = true

Tmux

.tmux.conf:

set -g default-terminal "tmux-256color"
set -ag terminal-overrides ",xterm-256color:RGB"
set -g mouse on
set -g base-index 1
set -g pane-base-index 1
set -g renumber-windows on
set -g history-limit 50000

# Prefix
unbind C-b
set -g prefix C-a
bind C-a send-prefix

# Splits
bind | split-window -h -c "#{pane_current_path}"
bind - split-window -v -c "#{pane_current_path}"

# Vim-style pane navigation
bind h select-pane -L
bind j select-pane -D
bind k select-pane -U
bind l select-pane -R

# Status bar
set -g status-style "bg=default,fg=white"
set -g status-left "#[fg=blue,bold] #S "
set -g status-right "#[fg=yellow] %H:%M "

Docker

A Dockerfile I reuse for Node.js services:

FROM node:22-slim AS base
WORKDIR /app

FROM base AS deps
COPY package.json package-lock.json ./
RUN npm ci --omit=dev

FROM base AS build
COPY package.json package-lock.json ./
RUN npm ci
COPY . .
RUN npm run build

FROM base AS runtime
COPY --from=deps /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY --from=build /app/dist ./dist
COPY package.json ./

USER node
EXPOSE 3000
CMD ["node", "dist/index.js"]

CSS I always start with

*, *::before, *::after {
    box-sizing: border-box;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
}

html {
    font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, sans-serif;
    line-height: 1.6;
    -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;
}

img, picture, video, canvas, svg {
    display: block;
    max-width: 100%;
}

input, button, textarea, select {
    font: inherit;
}

The philosophy

Keep it simple. Every line in a dotfile should exist for a reason you can explain. If you copied it from a blog post three years ago and don't know what it does, delete it.

Your tools should make you faster, not more complicated.