Professional macOS Dev Setup

This document describes how I set up my developer environment on a new MacBook.

The steps below were tested on macOS Sonoma (14.7.1), but should work for more recent versions as well.

Contributing: If you find any mistakes in the steps described below, or if any of the commands are outdated, do let me know!

System update

First thing you need to do, on any OS actually, is update the system! For that: Apple Icon > About This Mac then Software Update....

Apple M1 chips

Install the Rosetta2 emulator for the new ARM silicon (M1 chip). Install Rosetta2 using the terminal:

Key Points

• In general, binaries built just for x86 architecture will automatically be run in x86 mode

• You can force apps in Rosetta 2 / x86 mode by right-clicking app, click Get Info, check "Open using Rosetta"

• You can force command-line apps by prefixing with arch -x86_64, for example arch -x86_64 go

• Running a shell in this mode means you don't have to prefix commands: arch -x86_64 zsh then go or whatever

• Check which architecture the command support file $(which git)

• Check which architecture your term is running echo $(arch)

System preferences

If this is a new computer, there are a couple of tweaks I like to make to the System Preferences. Feel free to follow these, or to ignore them, depending on your personal preferences.

In Apple Icon > System Preferences:

• Trackpad > Tap to click

• Trackpad > Tracking speed > Fast (all the way to the right)

• Mouse > Tracking speed > Fast (all the way to the right)

• Keyboard > Key Repeat > Fast (all the way to the right)

• Keyboard > Delay Until Repeat > Short (all the way to the right)

• Dock > Size -> Small; Magnification -> Large

Finder Preferences

• Preferences -> advanced -> show all filename extensions

• View -> Show Path bar

• View -> Show Status bar

Security

I recommend checking that basic security settings are enabled. You will be happy to have done so if ever your Mac is lost or stolen.

In Apple Icon > System Preferences:

• Users & Groups: If you haven't already set a password for your user during the initial set up, you should do so now

• Security & Privacy > General: Require password immediately after sleep or screen saver begins (you can keep a grace period of a couple minutes if you prefer, but I like to know that my computer locks as soon as I close it)

• Security & Privacy > FileVault: Make sure FileVault disk encryption is enabled

• iCloud: If you haven't already done so during set up, enable Find My Mac

Homebrew

Package managers make it so much easier to install and update applications (for Operating Systems) or libraries (for programming languages). The most popular one for macOS is Homebrew.

Install

An important dependency before Homebrew can work is the Command Line Developer Tools for Xcode. These include compilers that will allow you to build things from source. You can install them directly from the terminal with:

Once that is done, we can install Homebrew by copy-pasting the installation command from the Homebrew homepage

x86

This will install the Homebrew under Rosetta. The x86 one under /usr/local

Follow the steps on the screen. You will be prompted for your user password so Homebrew can set up the appropriate permissions.

Once installation is complete, you can run the following command to make sure everything works:

Homebrew installer in native mode

Not under Rosetta. Native one under /opt/homebrew. completely separate from the x86 one under /usr/local

The brew version will be picked depending on what arch you are running the brew command

Usage

To install a package (or Formula in Homebrew vocabulary) simply type:

To see if any of your packages need to be updated:

To update a package:

Homebrew keeps older versions of packages installed, in case you want to rollback. That rarely is necessary, so you can do some cleanup to get rid of those old versions:

To see what you have installed (with their version numbers):

Homebrew Services

A nice extension to Homebrew is Homebrew Services. It will automatically launch things like databases when your computer starts, so you don't have to do it manually every time.

Homebrew Services will automatically install itself the first time you run it, so there is nothing special to do.

After installing a service (for example a database), it should automatically add itself to Homebrew Services. If not, you can add it manually with:

Start a service with:

At anytime you can view which services are running with:

iTerm2

Since we're going to be spending a lot of time in the command-line, let's install a better terminal than the default one.

You can now launch iTerm, through the Launchpad for instance.

Natural text editing

To improve the experience in the terminal enable the Natural text editing option

Preferences -> profiles -> keys -> Key Mappings -> Presents -> Add Natural text editing

More info

Warp Terminal

I started using Warp terminal instead of Iterm2. I think worth check it out.

Install oh-my-zsh

ZSH is already preinstalled in the latest versions of macOS. I also install https://ohmyz.sh/ as it allows for more configuration and is required in some cases.

Install the Oh My Zsh plugins below

To activate the plugins, add the following at the end of your .zshrc:

Add the source ~/.bash_profile to .zshrc, this way you will leverage the configuration from that file

Change the ZSH theme. Replace the ZSH_THEME with ZSH_THEME="gnzh".

You will also need to force reload of your .zshrc:

Stats bar

Display macOS system monitor in your menu bar

Create ssh key

Execute the command below to begin the key creation. Press enter all the way to the end

Add the new SSH key to the local SSH agent.

Get the generated public key

Show all hidden files

Use the command line to show all hidden files as the files you are searching for are going to be hidden by default.

Git

macOS comes with a pre-installed version of Git, but we'll install our own through Homebrew to allow easy upgrades and not interfere with the system version. To do so, simply run:

When done, to test that it installed fine you can run:

The output should be /usr/local/bin/git.

Let's set up some basic configuration. Download the .gitconfig file to your home directory:

It will add some color to the status, branch, and diff Git commands, as well as a couple aliases. Feel free to take a look at the contents of the file, and add to it to your liking.

Next, we'll define your Git user (should be the same name and email you use for GitHub and Heroku):

They will get added to your .gitconfig file.

On a Mac, it is important to remember to add .DS_Store (a hidden macOS system file that's put in folders) to your project .gitignore files. You also set up a global .gitignore file, located for instance in your home directory (but you'll want to make sure any collaborators also do it):

Visual Studio Code

With the terminal, the text editor is a developer's most important tool. Everyone has their preferences, but if you're just getting started and looking for something simple that works, Visual Studio Code is a pretty good option.

Go ahead and download it. Open the .dmg file, drag-and-drop in the Applications folder, you know the drill now. Launch the application.

If you remember only one keyboard shortcut in VS Code, it should be Cmd+Shift+P. This opens the Command Palette, from which you can run pretty much anything.

Let's open the command palette now, and search for Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH. Hit enter when it shows up. This will install the command-line tool code to quickly open VS Code from the terminal. When in a projects directory, you'll be able to run:

Vim

Although VS Code will be our main editor, it is a good idea to learn some very basic usage of Vim. It is a very popular text editor inside the terminal, and is usually pre-installed on any Unix system.

For example, when you run a Git commit, it will open Vim to allow you to type the commit message.

Vim's default settings aren't great, and you could spend a lot of time tweaking your configuration (the .vimrc file). But if you only use Vim occasionally, you'll be happy to know that Tim Pope has put together some sensible defaults to quickly get started.

Using Vim's built-in package support, install these settings by running:

With that, Vim will look a lot better next time you open it!

Python

Before starting the set up, let's look at some issues with M1 architecture.

• Update the Python pip that comes in the system. You will need it to install some x86 Python dependencies arch -x86_64 /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip

Troubleshooting

The pip command from pyenv doesn't support the x86 architecture and you might have problems installing some dependencies. Ex. cv2

If you have problems installing dependencies. Use the pip from the system

It is recommended creating a python environment with

IDE

You might need to be able to set the arch -x86_64 when running python scripts from the IDE. If you ever need it, you can replace the python bin with this script.

Notice that the original python bin was renamed to original_python_bin

Back to the Python instalation

macOS, like Linux, ships with Python already installed. But you don't want to mess with the system Python (some system tools rely on it, etc.), so we'll install our own version using pyenv. This will also allow us to manage multiple versions of Python (ex: 2.7 and 3) should we need to.

Install pyenv via Homebrew by running:

When finished, you should see instructions to add something to your profile. Open your .bash_profile in the home directory (you can use code ~/.bash_profile), and add the following line:

Save the file and reload it with:

Before installing a new Python version, the pyenv wiki recommends having a few dependencies available:

We can now list all available Python versions by running:

Look for the latest 3.x version (or 2.7.x), and install it (replace the .x.x with actual numbers):

List the Python versions you have locally with:

The star (*) should indicate we are still using the system version, which is the default.

You can switch your current terminal to another Python version with:

You should now see that version when running:

In a project directory, you can use:

This will save that project's Python version to a .python-version file. Next time you enter the project's directory from a terminal, pyenv will automatically load that version for you.

For more information, see the pyenv commands documentation.

pip

pip was also installed by pyenv. It is the package manager for Python.

Here are a couple Pip commands to get you started. To install a Python package:

To upgrade a package:

To see what's installed:

To uninstall a package:

virtualenv

virtualenv is a tool that creates an isolated Python environment for each of your projects.

For a particular project, instead of installing required packages globally, it is best to install them in an isolated folder, that will be managed by virtualenv. The advantage is that different projects might require different versions of packages, and it would be hard to manage that if you install packages globally.

Instead of installing and using virtualenv directly, we'll use the dedicated pyenv plugin pyenv-virtualenv which will make things a bit easier for us. Install it via Homebrew:

After installation, add the following line to your .bash_profile:

And reload it with:

Now, let's say you have a project called myproject. You can set up a virtualenv for that project and the Python version it uses (replace 3.x.x with the version you want):

See the list of virtualenvs you created with:

To use your project's virtualenv, you need to activate it first (in every terminal where you are working on your project):

If you run pyenv virtualenvs again, you should see a star (*) next to the active virtualenv.

Now when you install something:

It will get installed in that virtualenv's folder, and not conflict with other projects.

You can also set your project's .python-version to point to a virtualenv you created:

Next time you enter that project's directory, pyenv will automatically load the virtualenv for you.

Anaconda and Miniconda

The Anaconda/Miniconda distributions of Python come with many useful tools for scientific computing.

You can install them using pyenv, for example (replace x.x.x with an actual version number):

After loading an Anaconda or Miniconda Python distribution into your shell, you can create conda environments (which are similar to virtualenvs):

Install packages, for example the Jupyter Notebook, using:

You should now be able to run the notebook:

Deactivate the environment, and return to the default Python version with:

Known issue: gettext not found by git after installing Anaconda/Miniconda

If you installed an Anaconda/Miniconda distribution, you may start seeing an error message when using certain git commands, similar to this one:

If that is the case, you can use the following workaround:

Then add this line to your .bash_profile:

pipx

pipx is a tool to help you install and run end-user applications written in Python.

AWS CLI

Download the pkg installer using the curl command.

Run the standard macOS installer program, specifying the downloaded .pkg file as the source.

If you don't have root permission check here how to install to the current user without sudo

Node.js

The recommended way to install Node.js is to use nvm (Node Version Manager) which allows you to manage multiple versions of Node.js on the same machine.

Install nvm by copy-pasting the install script command into your terminal.

Once that is done, open a new terminal and verify that it was installed correctly by running:

View the all available stable versions of Node with:

Install the latest stable version with:

It will also set the first version installed as your default version. You can install another specific version, for example Node 10, with:

And switch between versions by using:

See which versions you have install with:

Change the default version with:

In a project's directory you can create a .nvmrc file containing the Node.js version the project uses, for example:

Next time you enter the project's directory from a terminal, you can load the correct version of Node.js by running:

npm

Installing Node also installs the npm package manager.

To install a package:

To install a package and save it in your project's package.json file:

To see what's installed:

To find outdated packages (locally or globally):

To upgrade all or a particular package:

To uninstall a package:

Yarn

Is a alternative package manage to npm

Java

The recommended way to install Java is to use SDKman (Software development kit Management) which allows you to manage multiple versions of Java on the same machine and

Install

Usage

The following command will show you which versions of Java are available to install:

You can find the latest version in that list and install it with (replace .x.x with actual version numbers):

Select the version you want to use

Java version per Project

Want to switch to a specific JDK or SDK every time you visit a project? This can be achieved through an .sdkmanrc file in the base directory of your project. This file can be generated automatically by issuing the following command

To switch to the configuration present in your .sdkmanrc file, simply issue the following command:

Managing Java tools

Check all Java softwares available here

Install Maven

Install VisualVM

Postman

Postman is an API platform for building and using APIs. It is a very useful tool to work with different APIs(REST, Graphql and gRPC)

AltTab

AltTab brings the power of Windows’s “alt-tab” window switcher to macOS.

After installed, use option + tab to navigate through the opened windows

Zoom

Video communication and virtual meeting platform

Slack

Team communication and collaboration software

Docker

Docker is a set of platform-as-a-service (PaaS) products that use OS-level virtualization to deliver software in packages called containers.

Install

Download the version of docker for osx you want, check here

Create an account here

Then you can download here

Follow all the steps and congrats!You should have downloaded docker

Kubernetes

We will quickly and easily get a Kubernetes cluster up and running by running a kind Kubernetes cluster. Kind is a Kubernetes cluster that leverages Docker to run a cluster.

Deploy a sample workload(Nginx)

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is a popular relational database, and Heroku has first-class support for it.

Install PostgreSQL using Homebrew:

It will automatically add itself to Homebrew Services. Start it with:

If you reboot your machine, PostgreSQL will be restarted at login.

GUI

You can interact with your SQL database by running psql in the terminal.

If you prefer a GUI (Graphical User Interface), Postico has a simple free version that let's you explore tables and run SQL queries.

Redis

Redis is a fast, in-memory, key-value store, that uses the disk for persistence. It complements nicely a database such as PostgreSQL. There are a lot of interesting things that you can do with it. For example, it's often used for session management or caching by web apps, but it has many other uses.

To install Redis, use Homebrew:

Start it through Homebrew Services with:

I'll let you refer to Redis' documentation or other tutorials for more information.