Z Shell Launchpad 🚀

A simple dotfiles template to kick-start/bootstrap your zsh config and start learning how to get the most out of your shell.

Copy these files into your home dir and you're good to go!

What is this? What are its goals?

• It’s a fully functional set of dotfiles that works out of the box. Its goal is to help you be productive with Zsh right off the bat.
• It’s a template for you to customize to your own liking. Its goal is to give you a solid basis for your own Zsh, but without filling in details that are outside the scope of Zsh itself.
• It’s an educational tool with lots of examples and lots of comments to help you understand what the heck is going on. Its goal is to be a springboard for you to start your journey into learning Zsh, with plenty of links pointing you to further reading.

However, this is not a finished product or a fire-and-forget piece of software with a fixed API. Rather, you’re supposed to read it through and learn from it, then use the knowledge you’ve gained to tailor it to your own needs.

It is, however, opinionated. It gives you what I think is a solid set of sensible defaults and deliberately does not delve into topics that I think are better solved by using good plugins.

Who is this for? Is it right for me?

This template is for those who

• want to have a ready-made config so they can get started with Zsh right away and
• want to actually learn how to write Zsh code and make the most of Zsh’s many features.

There is currently no alternative for new Zsh users that solidly checks both of these boxes. Oh-My-Zsh and other “frameworks” cater to those who strongly want the former, but don't give you any of the latter. Zsh itself also fails in this regard. On one end, its new user wizard tries to give you the former, but, rather than give you decent defaults, forces you to choose from a wide array of confusing options and leaves you with a poorly-documented config full of magic values. On the other end, its An Introduction to the Z Shell tries to give you the latter, but rather than being hands-on, presents you with endless lists of abstract examples without clear, practical uses and hasn't been updated since 1995.

There is clearly a gap in the offerings for new Zsh users. This template is for those who occupy that niche.

However, it does assume you already know how to program. It’s not going to teach you that.