Laptop

Laptop is a script to set up a macOS laptop for web and mobile development.

It can be run multiple times on the same machine safely. It installs, upgrades, or skips packages based on what is already installed on the machine.

Requirements

We support:

• macOS Tahoe (26.x) on Apple Silicon and Intel
• macOS Sequoia (15.x) on Apple Silicon and Intel
• macOS Sonoma (14.x) on Apple Silicon and Intel
• macOS Ventura (13.x) on Apple Silicon and Intel

Older versions may work but aren't regularly tested. Bug reports for older versions are welcome.

Install

Download the script:

curl --remote-name https://raw.githubusercontent.com/thoughtbot/laptop/main/mac

Review the script (avoid running scripts you haven't read!):

less mac

Execute the downloaded script:

sh mac 2>&1 | tee ~/laptop.log

Optionally, review the log:

less ~/laptop.log

Optionally, install thoughtbot/dotfiles.

Debugging

Your last Laptop run will be saved to ~/laptop.log. Read through it to see if you can debug the issue yourself. If not, copy the lines where the script failed into a new GitHub Issue for us. Or, attach the whole log file as an attachment.

What it sets up

macOS tools:

• Homebrew for managing operating system libraries.

Unix tools:

• fzf for better command history searching
• Universal Ctags for indexing files for vim tab completion
• Git for version control
• OpenSSL for Transport Layer Security (TLS)
• RCM for managing company and personal dotfiles
• The Silver Searcher for finding things in files
• Tmux for saving project state and switching between projects
• Watchman for watching for filesystem events
• Zsh as your shell

Heroku tools:

• Heroku CLI and Parity for interacting with the Heroku API

GitHub tools:

• GitHub CLI for interacting with the GitHub API

Image tools:

• ImageMagick for cropping and resizing images

Programming languages, package managers, and configuration:

• asdf-vm for managing programming language versions
• Bundler for managing Ruby libraries
• Node.js and npm, for running apps and installing JavaScript packages
• Ruby stable for writing general-purpose code
• Yarn for managing JavaScript packages
• Rosetta 2 for running tools that are not supported in Apple silicon processors

Databases:

• Postgres for storing relational data
• Redis for storing key-value data

It should take less than 15 minutes to install (depends on your machine).

Customize in ~/.laptop.local

Your ~/.laptop.local is run at the end of the Laptop script. Put your customizations there. For example:

#!/bin/sh

brew bundle --file=- <<EOF
brew "Caskroom/cask/dockertoolbox"
brew "go"
brew "ngrok"
brew "watch"
EOF

default_docker_machine() {
  docker-machine ls | grep -Fq "default"
}

if ! default_docker_machine; then
  docker-machine create --driver virtualbox default
fi

default_docker_machine_running() {
  default_docker_machine | grep -Fq "Running"
}

if ! default_docker_machine_running; then
  docker-machine start default
fi

fancy_echo "Cleaning up old Homebrew formulae ..."
brew cleanup

if [ -r "$HOME/.rcrc" ]; then
  fancy_echo "Updating dotfiles ..."
  rcup
fi

Write your customizations such that they can be run safely more than once. See the mac script for examples.

Laptop functions such as fancy_echo and gem_install_or_update can be used in your ~/.laptop.local.

See the wiki for more customization examples.

Contributing

Thank you, contributors!

By participating in this project, you agree to abide by the thoughtbot code of conduct.

Edit the mac file. Document in the README.md file. Update the CHANGELOG. Follow shell style guidelines by using ShellCheck and ALE or deprecated Syntastic.

brew install shellcheck

Testing your changes

Test your changes by running the script on a fresh install of macOS. You can use the free and open source emulator UTM.

Tip: Make a fresh virtual machine with the installation of macOS completed and your user created and first launch complete. Then duplicate that machine to test the script each time on a fresh install that's ready to go.

License

Copyright © 2011 thoughtbot, inc. It is free software, and may be redistributed under the terms specified in the LICENSE file.

About thoughtbot

This repo is maintained and funded by thoughtbot, inc. The names and logos for thoughtbot are trademarks of thoughtbot, inc.

We love open source software! See our other projects. We are available for hire.