Show HN: It's 2026 and setting up a Mac for development is still mass googling

github.com
openbootdotenv
4 hours ago
3points
1 comments

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openbootdotenv4 hours ago
I've wiped and rebuilt my Mac probably 20+ times over the years. Every time I told myself "this time I'll write a proper setup script." Every time it turned into a 300-line bash file that broke 6 months later because some brew formula renamed itself or Oh-My-Zsh changed their install URL.

Then I looked around. Brewfile handles packages but not your shell, not your macOS prefs, not your dotfiles. chezmoi handles dotfiles but not packages. nix-darwin handles everything but good luck onboarding a junior with it.

Nothing just does the whole thing. So I built it.

brew install openbootdotdev/tap/openboot

The thing that a Brewfile doesn't solve: shell config, macOS prefs, dotfiles, and the fact that non-terminal people on your team can't edit YAML. So I added a web dashboard where you can build a config visually and share it as a URL for team onboarding.

There's also openboot snapshot which scans your current machine and captures everything into a shareable config. Handy when someone on the team already has the "golden" setup.

Go + Charmbracelet for the TUI. MIT licensed, no telemetry, macOS only.

Curious what everyone here does for Mac setup. I've seen people go all the way from "I just wing it" to full nix-darwin flakes. What's your approach?