Installing a macOS developer workstation

It is sitting on my desk, a shiny M4 MacBook. It wants to be configured. I can take the easy route and use the Migration Assistant. But that would carry forward all the cruft the various incarnations of the Migration Assistant have accumulated over the decade. So I went the hard way.

Manual with a dash of AppStore

First Stop: update macOS. In my case Sequoia 15.1 -> 15.6.1

Installation falls into 3 categories

• command line tooling
• settings & data
• GUI applications

Followed by the reconfiguration of license keys

command line tooling

• SdkMan: Install any software SDK
• Java
• Maven
• Quarkus
• Homebrew: Package manager for macOS
• jq: parse json
• orbstack: fast container runtime
• starship: Proper prompts
• node: JavaScript runtime
• gh: GitHub CLI
• gpg: Code signing
• pinentry-mac: keep yout gpg passphrase in the Keychain
• helm: Configure your Kubernetes
• Rust: memory safe programming curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
• Jetbrains Mono: Developer font
• Google Drive: File Sync for Cloud

settings & data

• Configurations (~/.config)
• Git configurtion (~/.gitconfig and ~/.gitignore)
• GitHub Tokens (~/.github)
• Maven repos (~/.m2) big question: copy the repos or newly fetch
• Network access (~/.netrc and ~/.npmrc)
• Notes Data (~/Library/Application Support/HCL Notes Data' and ~/Library/Preferences/Notes Preferences)
• PGP Keys (~/.gnupg)
• Repositories (~/Code)
• Shell config (~/.zshrc)
• SSH keys and configuration (~/.ssh)
• The shell script collection (~/bin)

GUI applications

• BetterZip: GUI for zip files
• Bruno: HTTP Client, offline
• Charles Proxy: HTTP(s) Debugging Proxy
• Clean my Mac: Basic hygiene including cruft removal and app updates
• Cyberduck macOS SFTP Client
• DiffMerge: One of the best DiffMerge GUIs (Intel only). Needs a little tlc to work: sudo xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine /Applications/DiffMerge.app
• Discord: Chat & Community
• Firefox: Browser
• GIMP: Graphics editor
• GitKraken: GUI for git
• GPG Suite: Manage your PGP Keys
• IntelliJ: IdE
• Keybase: Share your keys, encrypted chat
• Little Snitch: Application Firewall with GEO GUI
• Omnigraffle (or AppStore): Diagram Editor
• Orbstack: Blazing fast container runtime (I used brew)
• Parallels Desktop: Virtual Machines for macOS
• Sublime Text: Ultra fast text editor
• Termius: Multi platform terminal client
• Tower: GIT GUI
• Visual Studio Code: IdE
• WiFiman: VPN Client
• Xcode: Apple developer IdE

As usual YMMV