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New Computer Setup

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).

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
  1. Install Browser
  • For personal, I use Safari
    • Install extensions: 1Password, Matter
  • For work, I’ve been bouncing back and forth, but I’m back to Chrome.
  • Log into Google, Github, X
    • Log into whichever Google account you’ll use the most for oauth.
    • I go back and forth on using Browser profiles.
  1. Install Terminal: Ghostty
  2. Install Xcode Tools (takes 10 min) sudo xcode-select --install

While Xcode Tools are downloading, install some apps

IDE

  • Zed - In the age of agents I’ve moved exclusively to Zed

AI

  • ChatGPT
    • set shortcut to Shift+Cmd+Space
  • Ollama
    • justify playing your part in the memory wars
# If you want to download some models in the background:
ollama run [MODELNAME]

Productivity

  • Superwhisper - for voice to text
    • set right command key for push to talk
  • Granola
  • Email: Superhuman
  • Calendar: Notion Calendar
  • Notion
  • Figma
  • MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint (open and login)
  • Raycast
    • Disable Spotlight hotkey in Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts
    • Hotkey Cmd+Space
    • Alias c for contact search
    • Hotkey Shift+Cmd+C for clipboard history
  • Mochi - spaced repetition
  • ChatGPT
    • Hotkey: Command+Shift Space
  • Claude
    • Remove Voice Hotkey
  • Codex

Comms

Other

Security/Privacy

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)
  • UV: curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
    • uv python install 3.12
  • Github CLI: brew install gh
    • gh auth login
  • Bun: curl -fsSL https://bun.com/install | bash
  • Claude code: curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash
  • Codex: brew install codex
  • Vercel: brew install vercel-cli
  • Other: brew install mactop postgresql@16

Clean up and update defaults

Clean Up

  • Delete Numbers, Pages
  • Clear the Dock (hold option and drag off everything)
  • Turn Dock auto-hiding on
  • Stats: brew install stats
    • Combined Modules
  • Itsycal
    • Remove Date from Apple Clock in Settings > Menubar > Clock Options

Change Defaults

  • System Preferences
    • Turn off all notification sounds (if there’s a way to do this in the shell please tell me)
    • Hotkey for upper right desktop reveal
    • Turn off Autofill in Safari
  • Turn off screenshot sounds
defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-sound -bool true
killall SystemUIServer
  • Finder Settings
    • Settings → General
      • Sync Documents and Desktop
      • New finder window > ~
    • Settings → Advanced
      • When performing a search -> Search the Current Folder
    • Settings → Sidebar
      • Add ~ to Favorites
    • Create ~/dev folder and pin it
      • Settings > General >
    • Desktop Settings → Sort by Date Added
    # show Library folder
chflags nohidden ~/Library

Thanks

Thanks to swyx and Eugene Yan for inspiration.