Aaron's ZSH Config

This is the basis of my ZSH config for all of my systems.

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Setup

Step 1: Clone this repository

I personally like to clone this into ~/git/zsh and use symlinks from there, so that's how I will write this up. If you'd rather, you can just as well clone it straight to ~/.zsh if you want.

# If git directory doesn't exist:
mkdir ~/git

git clone https://git.skyfall.tech/ajohnson/zsh.git ~/git/zsh

## Or, if you have a valid user on git.skyfall.tech, you can use the SSH connection:

git clone git@git.skyfall.tech:ajohnson/zsh.git ~/git/zsh

Step 2: Copy out example config files and edit to your preferences

Some variables of the shell configuration I don't keep the same across the board, so I have created a zsh.conf file for things such as shell options and prompt styles/colours. I have also added a [very] basic "custom" template file as an example as well. Both of these files, once copied to to the repo's root dir, will be ignored by git.

cd ~/git/zsh
cp -v example_configs/* ./

IMPORTANT: The defaults in zsh/conf will work well for most systems, but if you are using any kind of BSD-derived system, including Mac OS-X, you will definitely need to set BSD_MODE=true in zsh.conf.

Step 3: Deploy symlinks to load the configuration

Even if you opted to clone the repo straight to ~/.zsh, you will still need to at least make the symlink for the zshrc file.

cd
ln -s git/zsh .zsh
ln -s git/zsh/zshrc ./zshrc

# Test deployment by opening a new zsh instance
zsh

Customization

Other than the zsh.conf options, you can perform any sort of customization you want easily by placing the configuration in the custom file. The custom file is loaded last, and so will overwrite anything set up by the default shell configuration here. You can also source other outside files from the custom files as well. If you don't care for any of the pre-defined prompts provided, just set up a new on in custom!

Notable Features

HISTORY_HIDE_SPACE

This option will let any command starting with an empty space character be omitted from .zsh_history. This is very useful for things such as running commands that contain passwords, for instance.

AUTO_CD

If you just name a path, the shell will assume you intended to change directories.

ajohnson@helios:~ % git/zsh
ajohnson@helios:~/git/zsh [add_readme]% 

SHOW_NZ_EXIT

This option will display exit codes of the previous command at the beginning of your prompt, but only when the exit code is non-zero. If the previous command returns 0, then your prompt will not show any exit code.

ajohnson@helios:~ % 
ajohnson@helios:~ % true
ajohnson@helios:~ % false
1:ajohnson@helios:~ % 
1:ajohnson@helios:~ % true
ajohnson@helios:~ %
ajohnson@helios:~ % zsh -c "exit 42"
42:ajohnson@helios:~ % 

cd Search and Replace

You can substitute one word for another in your current working directory by using the cd syntax:

cd [old_word] [new_word]

Here is an example where I cd from a Confluence Tomcat log dir to a Jira Tomcat log dir, which you can see by looking at the current working directory in the prompt:

ajohnson@atlas:/opt/j2ee/domains/skyfall.tech/wiki/current/logs %  cd wiki jira
/opt/j2ee/domains/skyfall.tech/jira/current/logs
ajohnson@atlas:/opt/j2ee/domains/skyfall.tech/jira/current/logs % 

Display Current VCS Branch in Prompt

This feature is my favourite one on the list. It works with Git and Subversion at least, though I have never tested it with Mercurial. In this example, I start out in the 'rewrite' branch and switch to 'dev'.

ajohnson@helios:~/git/heatbot [rewrite]% git checkout dev
Switched to branch 'dev'
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/dev'.
ajohnson@helios:~/git/heatbot [dev]% 

Epilogue

If there are other prompt layouts/styles that you'd like to share, let me know and I'll be happy taking a look and considering adding them as options.