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In the age of AI, I seem to be buying and setting up new computers way more often (RAM maxing). Here’s a guide I use to do it. I hope one day, AI can read this and do it for me (that’s assuming I even need to use a computer in the future).

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Initial Setup

• Migration Assistant: never. Fresh start.
• Skip Apple Intelligence - it’s crap.

Before anything else

1. Install 1Password - so you can login into everything else

• Turn on developer experience and setup SSH agent

2. Install Browser

• For personal, I use Safari
  • Install extensions: 1Password, Matter
• For work, I used to use Arc (RIP), now Brave
  • Setting to vertical tabs
  • Add to sync chain (extensions installed automatically)
• Log into Google, Github, X

3. Install Terminal: Warp
4. Install Xcode Tools (takes 10 min) sudo xcode-select --install

While Xcode Tools are downloading, install some apps

IDE

• Cursor as my main squeeze
• Zed - I’m experimenting with Zed + Claude Code as an alternative

AI

• ChatGPT
  • set shortcut to Shift+Cmd+Space
• LM Studio
• Ollama

# If you want to download some models in the background:
ollama run gemma3
ollama run deepseek-r1
ollama run llama3.2

Productivity

• Superwhisper - for voice to text
  • set right option key for push to talk
• Granola - for battery optimization
• Email: Superhuman
• Calendar: Notion Calendar
• Notion
• Figma
• MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint (open and login)
• Raycast
  • Hotkey Cmd+Space
  • Alias c for contact search
  • Hotkey Shift+Cmd+C for clipboard history
• Mochi - spaced repetition

Comms

• WhatsApp
• Signal
• Slack
• Zoom - start a meeting asap to get permissions set up

Other

• Spotify
• VLC
• Amphetamine
• Screen Studio
• Flux

Security/Privacy

• Mullvad VPN
• Little Snitch
• Install NextDNS profile

After XCode finishes, set up local dev environment

I really try to avoid customizing (no dotfiles, vanilla zsh, etc), just to make it easier to setup and maintain. I also don’t copy over past brew lists and just install as needed.

• Homebrew /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)
  • echo >> /Users/ak/.zprofile
  • echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> /Users/ak/.zprofile
  • eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"
• UV: curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
  • uv python install 3.12
• FNM: curl -fsSL https://fnm.vercel.app/install | bash
  • fnm install 22
• Github CLI: brew install gh
• PNPM: brew install pnpm | pnpm setup
• Claude code: pnpm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
• Docker: brew install docker
• Vercel: brew install vercel-cli
• Cloudflare: brew install cloudflare-wrangler
• Other: brew install mactop node nvm postgresql@16
• SSH Keys:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com"

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
touch ~/.ssh/config
open ~/.ssh/config

# add to config
Host github.com
  AddKeysToAgent yes
  UseKeychain yes
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

# run in shell
gh auth login
gh auth refresh -h github.com -s admin:ssh_signing_key
gh ssh-key add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub --type signing

Clean up and update defaults

Clean Up

• Delete Numbers, Pages
• Clear the Dock (hold option and drag off everything)
• Turn Dock auto-hiding on

Menubar

• Stats: brew install stats
• Menubar Management: brew install jordanbaird-ice
• Itsycal

Change Defaults

• System Preferences
  • Turn off all notification sounds (if there’s a way to do this in the shell please tell me)
  • Disable dictionary lookup: Trackpad -> Point & Click -> Look up & data detectors off
  • Disable Spotlight search key commands
  • Hotkey for upper right desktop reveal
• Turn off Apple Passwords in Safari
• Finder Settings
  • Settings → General
    • Sync Documents and Desktop
    • New finder window > ~
  • Settings → Advanced
    • Show filename extensions
    • When performing a search -> Search the Current Folder
  • Settings → Sidebar
    • Add ~ to Favorites
  • Create ~/Dev folder and pin it
    • Settings > General >

  # show Library folder
  chflags nohidden ~/Library
  
  # show hidden files
  defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
  
  # add pathbar to title
  defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool true
  
  # restart finder
  killall Finder;

Thanks

Thanks to swyx and Eugene Yan for inspiration.