First, fork this repo on Github.

Then, clone your Github fork (replace "your-github-name" with your Github name) onto your laptop and install it:

git clone git@github.com:your-github-name/dotfiles.git cd dotfiles ./install.sh 

This will create symlinks for all config files in your home directory. You can safely run this file multiple times to update.

There is configuration for zsh so switch your shell from the default bash to zsh on OS X:

chsh -s /bin/zsh 

dotfiles are fairly personal. You should be able to modify your dotfiles, and save them in version control in your fork.

However, the thoughtbot folks are often tweaking these dotfiles and you want to be able to get those updates.

So, your master branch is meant for your customizations and use the upstream branch to get thoughtbot's updates.

You only have to do this once:

git remote add upstream git@github.com:thoughtbot/dotfiles.git git fetch upstream git checkout -b upstream upstream/master 

You will want to customize your environment. We suggest making changes in files that are not in thoughtbot's files.

For example, to customize your zsh config, make your changes in ~/.zshenv:

# RVM [[ -s '/Users/croaky/.rvm/scripts/rvm' ]] && source '/Users/croaky/.rvm/scripts/rvm' # recommended by brew doctor export PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:$PATH" 

Commit those kinds of things in your master branch.

Then, each time you want to update thoughtbot's changes.

git checkout upstream git pull git checkout master git rebase upstream