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Ninety minutes into a new Mac setup

You’ve just Googled “mac fast key repeat rate terminal” for the fifth time in your career. You recognize the Stack Overflow answer. You upvoted it last time.

Homebrew’s installed. Xcode tools took 20 minutes for reasons you’ve stopped questioning. Now you’re staring at Terminal trying to remember if you use ripgrep or rg or both. Was it bat or batcat? You had fzf on the old machine. Or was that only on your work Mac?

By 3pm you still haven’t written a line of code.

This time, you open Terminal and type one line:

curl -fsSL https://openboot.dev/install.sh | bash

OpenBoot handles everything, then drops you into a TUI. You pick the developer preset — Node, Go, Docker, VS Code. You swap Postman for httpie, toggle on fzf. Hit Enter, go make coffee.

✓ Homebrew installed
✓ Installing 29 formulae and 14 casks...
✓ node (22.0.0) · go (1.23.0) · docker · mass-installing...
✓ visual-studio-code · arc · orbstack
✓ Oh-My-Zsh configured (git, zsh-autosuggestions, zsh-syntax-highlighting)
✓ macOS preferences applied (Fast Key Repeat, Finder Path Bar, Show Hidden Files)
✓ Dotfiles cloned and linked
✨ Setup complete. Restart your terminal.

You come back, open a new tab, type node --version. It works. git config user.email — it’s there. The Dock is clean, Finder shows hidden files, key repeat is fast. It’s your machine.

Twenty minutes. You’re writing code before lunch.

See Presets for what’s in minimal, developer, and full.

Your memory is the worst package manager you’ve ever used

Two years on this Mac. Thirty-two Homebrew packages, but you couldn’t list fifteen of them without checking brew list. Your .zshrc has aliases you don’t remember writing. Did you install tldr or tealdeer? Both? You Googled the defaults command to make key repeat instant — good luck finding that again.

Last month someone asked what’s in your dev environment. You sent them a list you typed from memory. Three tools were missing. Two you listed twice under different names.

Your memory is a terrible package manager. It doesn’t track dependencies. It has no changelog. The --version flag is unreliable.

openboot snapshot

OpenBoot scans your machine — Homebrew packages, casks, macOS preferences, shell config, git identity — and opens a TUI editor. You uncheck personal stuff (Spotify, Slack), keep the dev tools. Name it, upload it. One minute.

✓ Homebrew Formulae    32 found
✓ Homebrew Casks       15 found
✓ macOS Preferences    12 found
✓ Shell & Git Config   scanned
✓ Uploaded → https://openboot.dev/alex/my-setup

Now you have a URL. Next time someone asks “what’s your dev environment?” you send them a link. The list is complete. The versions are accurate. Your memory is off the hook.

Want more than just packages? Add a custom script in the Dashboard:

# Directory structure
mkdir -p ~/projects/{personal,work,oss}

# Fresh SSH key
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "alex@hey.com" -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 -N ""
eval "$(ssh-agent -s)" && ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

# Repos you always need
git clone git@github.com:alex/dotfiles.git ~/projects/personal/dotfiles
git clone git@github.com:alex/side-project.git ~/projects/personal/side-project

Everything that isn’t a package — directory structure, SSH keys, repo cloning — becomes part of your config. See Custom Configs for more on what custom scripts can do.

When the new machine arrives, or when IT finally sends that hardware refresh email:

openboot install alex/my-setup

Everything restored. Twenty minutes, done.

Work Mac, home Mac, same setup

Monday morning at the office. You install jq for a quick script. It’s useful, so you keep using it all week.

Friday night at home. You pull down the same project on your personal Mac. Run the script. jq: command not found. Right. You forgot to install it here too.

Now you’re manually remembering what you installed at work, typing brew install jq again, wondering what else is out of sync. This happens every time you add a new tool.

With OpenBoot, you don’t remember. You just sync.

After installing jq at work:

openboot snapshot

Updates your config. At home:

openboot install alex/my-setup

OpenBoot sees jq is in your config but not installed. Adds it. Two commands, both machines in sync. Works the other way too — install something at home, snapshot, pull it down at work next Monday.

Your config becomes the source of truth. Not your memory.

What’s Next