From Autonomy to Alignment
As I’ve told before, I had just joined GoEuro. That meant not just switching laptops — it meant adapting to how another engineering culture thought about environments, defaults, and onboarding.
I arrived with a minimal, lean dotfiles setup I’d been refining for five years. It worked. But it wasn’t made for teams.
Here they have many conventions. Engineers shared common setup expectations: tools, languages, linters, directory structures, prompt behaviors. And for once, instead of resisting alignment, I embraced it.
This update is where my dotfiles evolved from personal craft to shared foundation.
Introducing common.zsh
The biggest change was structural: I added zsh/common.zsh — a file meant to centralize all team-shared environment setup.
Before this, I’d kept my config ultra-modular. But that made it hard to onboard someone quickly — or share configs between multiple team members.
With common.zsh, I moved everything generic into one place:
export EDITOR=vim
export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
Shared scripts like rbenv setup or pyenv paths were added here too. Comments made it clear which parts were portable.
| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
common.zsh | Base setup for any dev machine |
aliases.zsh | Only local/shortcut logic |
functions.zsh | Mostly untouched helpers |
Instead of defending my quirks, I started curating what was helpful for the team.
Working Across Languages
At GoEuro, I wasn’t just using bash or zsh anymore. I needed Ruby, Node, Python — often in parallel.
So I added startup checks for:
# Ruby
export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"
eval "$(rbenv init -)"
# Node (nvm or version manager)
# Python (pyenv)
These were small, optional, and commented — but they made my machine more adaptable to projects with language-specific needs.
I didn’t want dotfiles to own the environment. I wanted them to enable it.
Still My Prompt, But Faster
The prompt stayed minimal — but I trimmed even more startup noise.
Instead of auto-sourcing themes or full oh-my-zsh configs, I simplified:
autoload -Uz vcs_info
precmd() { vcs_info }
PROMPT='%n@%m %1~ ${vcs_info_msg_0_}%# '
It’s lean, shows Git status, and doesn’t get in my way.
I also ensured prompt logic loaded after shared tooling, so PATH conflicts wouldn’t break things. Subtle stuff — but it saved minutes over weeks.
Better for Others, Not Just for Me
My install script didn’t change much — it was already dumb, and that was good. But I started thinking more about people cloning the repo.
So I:
- Added better inline comments
- Grouped logic into recognizable chunks
- Made
common.zsha safe default for anyone
These changes weren’t just about polish — they were about responsibility. Sharing dotfiles meant someone else might read them, trust them, or depend on them.
And I wanted to make that a little easier.
2018 Was the Year of Shared Craft
Joining GoEuro gave me the chance to evolve my environment from a solo ritual into a collaborative tool.
I didn’t lose what made the setup mine — I just made space for it to work for others too.
Now, I look at my dotfiles and ask:
- Could a teammate understand this?
- Would a new hire benefit from it?
- Can I install this on a random Mac and feel at home?
If the answer is yes, then I’ve done enough.