A new Mac in one command

Keep your machine's config in its own repo, then set up a new Mac from it with bootstrap.sh.

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zc-workstation is the tool; your machine’s setup lives in a second repo, a config repo, which you can keep private. A new Mac then needs one command.

The config repo

A config repo holds a zc-workstation.yaml and the files its targets point at. Paths in the config are relative to it, so the repo works wherever it is cloned. A layout that works well:

zc-workstation.yaml   targets: packages, home, theme, runtimes, look
Brewfile              every app and command-line tool
mise.toml             runtimes
home/                 chezmoi source for ~, with run_onchange_ scripts
apps/, scripts/       data and scripts the run scripts use

version: 1
targets:
  - name: packages
    provider: packages
    os: [darwin]
    file: Brewfile
  - name: home
    provider: dotfiles
    source: home
  - name: theme
    provider: dotfiles
    source: ../zc-workstation/assets/theme
  - name: runtimes
    provider: tools
    file: mise.toml
  - name: look
    provider: desktop
    os: [darwin]
    wallpaper: ../zc-workstation/assets/wallpaper/zc-workstation-laptop-dark.png
    screensaver: ../zc-workstation/assets/screensaver/index.html
    accent: blue

The packages come first, so the targets after them find chezmoi and mise.

Setup steps that are not files

Some setup is a command, not a file: loading a launch agent, writing macOS defaults, creating a signing key. Put each one in a chezmoi run script in home/, named run_onchange_after_NN-name.sh.tmpl. chezmoi runs it after the files are written, and again only when its content changes. To rerun it when a data file changes, put the file’s hash in a comment:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# macos.sh {{ include "../scripts/macos.sh" | sha256sum }}
"{{ .chezmoi.sourceDir | dir }}/scripts/macos.sh"

{{ .chezmoi.sourceDir | dir }} is the config repo itself. The plan shows each pending script as an UPDATE with chezmoi’s R status. Scripts run attached to your terminal, so they can ask a question, such as the git identity.

The runtimes config

mise reads its global config from ~/.config/mise/config.toml. Link it to the repo’s mise.toml with a chezmoi symlink template, home/dot_config/mise/symlink_config.toml.tmpl, holding {{ .chezmoi.sourceDir | dir }}/mise.toml. Then a tool you add with mise use -g lands in the repo.

bootstrap.sh

On a new Mac, in Terminal.app:

$ curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ZoolCoder/zc-workstation/main/bootstrap.sh | bash -s -- OWNER/CONFIG-REPO

It:

installs Homebrew, which also installs the Xcode command line tools
installs git, gh, go, chezmoi and mise
logs you in to GitHub, so git can clone a private config repo
clones zc-workstation and the config repo into ~/Developer/Tools, keeping either if it is already there
builds zc-workstation with make install into ~/.local/bin
trusts the config’s mise.toml
shows the plan, applies it, and applies again if anything is left, such as runtimes planned before mise arrived

It is safe to run again. ZC_TOOL_FROM and ZC_CONFIG_FROM clone from somewhere else, such as a local copy in a VM test.

Keeping Macs in step

Change the config repo, zc-workstation plan, zc-workstation apply, commit and push. On another Mac, pull and apply. A shell function that pulls both repos, rebuilds zc-workstation when it changed, and applies keeps this to one word.

Edit this page Last updated October 14, 2026