installfest

💻 macOS Installfest

Pre-install

  1. Identify which version of OSX you’re using - ideally you should have Ventura or newer (13.3.x)
  2. Ensure that you’ve uninstalled any antivirus software you may have, as it can prevent some of the tools from installing properly

Install Xcode Command Line Tools

Xcode is a large suite of software development tools and libraries from Apple.

The Xcode Command Line Tools are part of Xcode. Installation of many common Unix-based tools requires the GCC compiler.The Xcode Command Line Tools include a GCC compiler.

Terminal

  1. Install iTerm2
  2. Set the font size to be 14pt
    • Press ⌘ + ,
    • Navigate to Profiles > Text > Font
    • Increase the font size

Text editor

Zed

Zed Zed is a next-generation code editor designed for high-performance collaboration with humans and AI, written in Rust 🦀.

  1. Download Zed
  2. Move the app from downloads folder to application folder
  3. Open Zed
  4. Open the settings with ⌘ + ,
  5. Copy and paste the contents of this settings.json file into the settings
  6. Install the CLI integration by press Zed > Install CLI Integration

Agent Skills

Agent Skills are reusable instruction packages the AI agent loads on demand. Zed reads them from ~/.agents/skills/, Claude Code reads them from ~/.claude/skills/. This installfest puts the canonical set at ~/.agents/skills/ and symlinks ~/.claude/skills/ to it so both tools see the same skills.

This requires the Claude CLI (set up later in this installfest); if you have not installed it yet, do that first and come back.

  1. Register the two extra plugin marketplaces:

    claude plugin marketplace add accesslint/claude-marketplace
claude plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills

  2. Install the Claude Code plugins listed in configs/skills/claude-plugins.txt:

    xargs -L1 claude plugin install < configs/skills/claude-plugins.txt

    firebase@claude-plugins-official ships in the list. Disable it from the Claude UI if you do not need it.

  3. Install the custom subagent:

    mkdir -p ~/.claude/agents
cp configs/skills/agents/code-challenge-reviewer.md ~/.claude/agents/

  4. Create the shared skills directory and symlink ~/.claude/skills/ to it:

    mkdir -p ~/.agents/skills
ln -sfn ~/.agents/skills ~/.claude/skills

    ln -sfn overwrites any existing ~/.claude/skills/ entry. If you already have skills there from another setup, back them up first.

  5. Copy the vendored skill bundles into the shared directory:

    cp -R configs/skills/bundles/* ~/.agents/skills/

  6. Sparse-clone the curated subset of the Anthropic skills registry listed in configs/skills/anthropic-skills.txt:

    git clone --filter=blob:none --sparse https://github.com/anthropics/skills /tmp/anthropic-skills
git -C /tmp/anthropic-skills sparse-checkout set $(sed 's|^|skills/|' configs/skills/anthropic-skills.txt | tr '\n' ' ')
while read -r skill; do
  cp -R "/tmp/anthropic-skills/skills/$skill" ~/.agents/skills/
done < configs/skills/anthropic-skills.txt
rm -rf /tmp/anthropic-skills

  7. Verify. Open Zed and type / in the agent panel — your installed skills should appear in the completion menu. Optional CLI sanity checks:

    claude plugin list
readlink ~/.claude/skills      # should print the path to ~/.agents/skills
ls ~/.agents/skills            # should list all installed skill folders
ls ~/.claude/agents            # should include code-challenge-reviewer.md

VS Code

Visual Studio Code is a lightweight but powerful source code editor which runs on your desktop and is available for Windows, macOS and Linux. It comes with built-in support for JavaScript, TypeScript and Node.js

  1. Download Visual Studio
  2. Move the app from downloads folder to application folder
  3. Open Visual studio
  4. Install CLI integration
    • Press ⌘ + Shift + P
    • Type Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH and press Enter

  5. Turn on Settings sync

Terminal theme

  1. Create file called one-dark.itermcolors on the ~/Desktop and open it

    zed  ~/Desktop/one-dark.itermcolors
  2. Copy and paste One Dark theme code into the file
  3. Set the theme
    • Press ⌘ + ,
    • Navigate to Profiles > Colors > Color presets…
    • Select one-dark

Homebrew Package Manager

Homebrew is a package manager for macOS Linux.

What are packages?

Packages are bundles of source code distributed by developers of software, which can be compiled and installed on your machine.

Install

  1. The package manager allows us to install and update software (like Ruby, Git, MongoDB, etc) from the command line:
  2. Open http://brew.sh/, scroll down to Install Homebrew and copy+paste the command into the terminal.
  3. Ensure that Homebrew is raring to brew and fix any issues: brew doctor
  4. Update Homebrew: brew update

(Note: the absolute paths will not be used after the next step, but might not be needed if they already have /usr/local/bin in their $PATH)

Fish Shell

  1. Install Fish shell

    brew install fish

  2. Add the shell to /etc/shells with

     echo $(which fish) | sudo tee -a /etc/shells

  3. Change the default shell to Fish

     chsh -s $(which fish)

  4. Configure iTerm to use Fish shell

    • Open iTerm
    • Press ⌘ + ,
    • Navigate to Profiles > General > Command
    • Select Command Login Shell
    • Check Load integration automatically

Install Fisher plugin manager

Run the following command to install Fisher:

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jorgebucaran/fisher/main/functions/fisher.fish | source && fisher install jorgebucaran/fisher

Install Bass plugin

Bass makes it easy to use utilities written for Bash in fish shell.

fisher install edc/bass

Install onedark-fish theme

fisher rkbk60/onedark-fish

Configure Fish shell

  1. Create a file called config.fish in the ~/.config/fish directory

     zed ~/.config/fish/config.fish

  2. Add the following to the file

    if status is-interactive
   # Commands to run in interactive sessions can go here
   fish_add_path /opt/homebrew/bin
   set_onedark
end

# Homebrew
export HOMEBREW_PREFIX="/opt/homebrew"

# set editor
export EDITOR='zed -w -n'
export PAGER='less -f'

Install Starship 🚀

  1. Type

    brew install starship

  2. Add following to ~/.config/fish/config.fish

     if status is-interactive
     # ... other commands
     starship init fish | source
 end

  3. To get started configuring starship, create the following file:~/.config/starship.toml

    # Don't print a new line at the start of the prompt
add_newline = false

# Disable the package module, hiding it from the prompt completely
[package]
format = "via [🎁 $version](208 bold) "

[git_branch]
symbol = "🌱 "

[nodejs]
format = "via [🤖 $version](bold green) "

[directory]
truncation_length = 8
truncation_symbol = "…/"

[docker_context]
format = "via [🐋 $context](blue bold)"

[kotlin]
symbol = "🅺 "

[kubernetes]
format = 'on [🐳 $context \($namespace\)](bold green) '
disabled = false

[rust]
format = "via [⚙️ $version](red bold)"

[sudo]
style = "bold green"
symbol = "👩‍💻 "
disabled = false

[terraform]
format = "[🏎💨 $workspace]($style) "

Install Bat 🦇

A cat(1) clone with syntax highlighting and Git integration.

  1. Type 
    brew install bat

Install pyenv Python Version Manager

pyenv lets you easily switch between multiple versions of Python.

  1. Install

    brew install pyenv
brew install pyenv-virtualenv
  2. Set up your shell environment for Pyenv, run this 
    set -Ux PYENV_ROOT $HOME/.pyenv
fish_add_path $PYENV_ROOT/bin

  3. Set up shell environment for Pyenv in ~/.config/fish/config.fish

     # Load pyenv
 pyenv init - | source
 alias brew="env PATH=(string replace (pyenv root)/shims '' \"\$PATH\") brew"
  4. Restart the shell 
    exec "$SHELL"

Install Python

Check the latest python version and replace the semver number

  1. Install 
    pyenv install 3.11.1
  2. Set the global version 
    pyenv global 3.11.1
  3. Python doesn’t ship with the most up to date version of package manager pip, so upgrade pip 
    pip install -upgrade pip

NVM Node Version Manager

Install

  1. Open a terminal window and type:

    Check the latest nvm

    curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.1/install.sh | bash

  2. Type source ~/.nvmrc to include the new folders to the current $PATH

Deeper shell integration

Read more here

  1. Create the following fish functions
# ~/.config/fish/functions/nvm.fish
function nvm
  bass source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh --no-use ';' nvm $argv
end

# ~/.config/fish/functions/nvm_find_nvmrc.fish
function nvm_find_nvmrc
  bass source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh --no-use ';' nvm_find_nvmrc
end

# ~/.config/fish/functions/load_nvm.fish
function load_nvm --on-variable="PWD"
  set -l default_node_version (nvm version default)
  set -l node_version (nvm version)
  set -l nvmrc_path (nvm_find_nvmrc)
  if test -n "$nvmrc_path"
    set -l nvmrc_node_version (nvm version (cat $nvmrc_path))
    if test "$nvmrc_node_version" = "N/A"
      nvm install (cat $nvmrc_path)
    else if test "$nvmrc_node_version" != "$node_version"
      nvm use $nvmrc_node_version
    end
  else if test "$node_version" != "$default_node_version"
    echo "Reverting to default Node version"
    nvm use default
  end
end
  1. Invoke on ~/.config/fish/config.fish by
if status is-interactive
    # ... other commands
    load_nvm > /dev/stderr
end

Using NVM

  1. Now that nvm is installed, we want to list the available versions, type:

    nvm ls-remote
    • And you will be shown a list of all the available versions of node
  2. Install the latest version of node and the current Long term support (LTS) 
    nvm install node
nvm install --lts

  3. Check that Node is installed, type

    node --version
    • You should see the last version number that you’ve installed
  4. To use nvm use automatically in a directory with a .nvmrc file add

Install PNPM

Since v16.13, Node.js is shipping Corepack for managing package managers.

  1. Enable corepack

    corepack enable

  2. Install pnpm

    corepack prepare pnpm@latest --activate
  3. Configure PNPM to work globally 
    pnpm setup

  4. Add the following to ~/.config/fish/config.fish

    # pnpm
set -gx PNPM_HOME "/Users/pataruco/Library/pnpm"
if not string match -q -- $PNPM_HOME $PATH
   set -gx PATH "$PNPM_HOME" $PATH
end
# pnpm end

Biome

Install Biome

brew install biome

Prettier

Create .prettierrc.json file

zed ~/.prettierrc

Install prettier packages

Install the following prettier packages

pnpm --global add prettier

Install Rust 🦀

Just run this

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Install Git

Git is the version control system that we will use throughout the course. It is one of the most powerful tools you will use as a developer.

  1. This ensures we can upgrade Git more easily: brew install git
  2. Restart the terminal
  3. Ensure you’re not using “Apple Git” from the path /usr/bin/git by checking which git and git --version
  4. Configure your name and email address for commits (be sure to use the email address you have registered with Github):
 git config --global user.name "Your Name"
 git config --global user.email "you@example.com"

Git Multiple identities

Instead to have a global user email, we can set a different identity per repo.

  1. Reset global user email 
    git config --global --unset-all user.email

  2. Set local config per repo

    git config --global --add user.useConfigOnly true
  3. Add email to your GitHub account emails

  4. Before the first commit on repo

    git config --local --add user.email mail@example.com

Git set default branch to be main

git config --global init.defaultBranch main

git show plugin (Delta)

Delta provides language syntax-highlighting, within-line insertion/deletion detection, and restructured diff output for git on the command line.

  1. Install via brew 
    brew install git-delta

  2. Configure git to use delta adding the following to .gitconfig:

     [core]
     pager = delta

 [interactive]
     diffFilter = delta --color-only

 [delta]
     features = side-by-side line-numbers decorations
     whitespace-error-style = 22 reverse

 [delta "decorations"]
     commit-decoration-style = bold yellow box ul
     file-style = bold yellow ul
     file-decoration-style = none

git-clean

Based on # Git Remove tracking branches no longer on remotE https://stackoverflow.com/a/33548037/4842303

  1. Create a fish file function

    zed ~/.config/fish/functions/git_clean.fish

  2. Add the following function

    function git-clean
 git fetch -p
 for branch in (git for-each-ref --format '%(refname) %(upstream:track)' refs/heads | awk '$2 == "[gone]" {sub("refs/heads/", "", $1); print $1}')
   git branch -D $branch
 end
end

Global .gitignore

There are a few files that we don’t want Git to track. We can specifically ignore them by adding the files to a global .gitignore file.

.DS_Store files

.DS_Store files are used by Mac OS X to store folder specific metadata information. They are different for every mac, it means that they often cause conflicts in version controlled folders.

Since we never want to track .DS_Store files, we can make a global .gitignore file, and tell git to use it for all repositories:

echo .DS_Store >> ~/.gitignore_global
git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global

public/uploads/, node_modules & bower_components

In the same way, we want to never track the contents of our uploads folder in Rails (which usually contain images or media that we have uploaded during testing) or our node_modules or bower_components.

echo "/public/uploads/\nnode_modules/\nbower_components/" >> ~/.gitignore_global

autocorrect

Enable auto-correct the suggested command will run after a short delay to give you the chance to cancel the command if it is not what you intended

git config --global help.autocorrect 20

Configure SSH keys on Github

GitHub is a web-based Git repository hosting service. It allows us to keep a remote version of our version-controlled projects. When we push and pull from Git, we don’t want to always have to login to verify who we are. Therefore, what we can do is generate and use something called an SSH key. SSH keys are a way to identify trusted computers, without involving passwords.

  1. First, we need to check for existing SSH keys on your computer. Open up your Terminal and type: 
    ls -al ~/.ssh

    Check the directory listing to see if you have files named either id_rsa.pub or id_dsa.pub. If you have either of those files you can skip to the step ‘add your SSH key to Github’.

  2. Generate a new SSH key 
     ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "your_email@example.com"
  3. You’ll be prompted for a file to save the key, and a passphrase. Press enter for both steps (default name, and no passphrase)
  4. Then add your new key to the ssh-agent: 
     ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
  5. Add your SSH key to GitHub by logging into Github, visiting account settings and clicking SSH keys. Click Add SSH key
  6. Copy your key to the clipboard with the terminal command: 
     pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
  7. On Github, create a descriptive title for your key, an paste into the key field - do not add or remove and characters or whitespace to the key
  8. Click Add key and check everything works in the terminal by typing: 
     ssh -T git@github.com

Configure signed commits

  1. Copy your key to the clipboard with the terminal command: 
     pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
  2. On Github, create a descriptive title for your key, an paste into the key field - do not add or remove and characters or whitespace to the key
  3. Select the type of key to be Signing Key.
  4. Click Add key
  5. Configure Git to use SSH to sign commits and tags 
    git config --global commit.gpgsign true
git config --global gpg.format ssh
  6. To set your SSH signing key in Git with the path to the public key you’d like to use. 
    git config --global user.signingkey ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Speed up your cursor

During the course, we will be doing a lot of navigating using our keyboards. By default, the speed of the curson on a Mac is a little too slow. Let’s increase the speed of the cursor by going to:

System Preferences > Keyboard

Move both up to maximum.