My macOS Terminal Setup

I spend most of my day SSH'd into GPU clusters, managing git repos, compressing PDFs and videos, and moving files between local and remote machines. At some point I got tired of the default macOS Terminal experience and put together a setup that's both functional and pleasant to look at. This post documents exactly what I run so you can reproduce it or steal the parts you like.

Prerequisites

I use macOS Terminal.app with a Monokai color profile and the Hack Nerd Font. iTerm2 works too. Install the core tools up front:

brew install powerlevel10k zsh-autosuggestions zsh-syntax-highlighting \
     lsd bat fzf fd ripgrep zoxide git-delta btop

Then run p10k configure once to generate ~/.p10k.zsh. Pick the Rainbow style with Nerd Font support.

Prompt: Powerlevel10k

The left prompt shows four segments: an Apple glyph, the current directory, git status, and a prompt character (❯ green on success, red on failure). The right prompt shows exit code, command duration, conda environment, and the time.

# ~/.p10k.zsh
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_LEFT_PROMPT_ELEMENTS=(
  os_icon   dir   vcs   prompt_char
)
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_RIGHT_PROMPT_ELEMENTS=(
  status   command_execution_time   background_jobs
  virtualenv   anaconda   time
)

The full terminal with lsd output. Left: Apple icon, directory path, git branch. Right: exit status, command duration, conda env, clock.

Directory gradient

Directory paths get a teal-to-pink color gradient, which keeps deeply nested paths readable against the dark navy background. I also define per-directory color classes so my PhD research directory uses a purple gradient, downloads go orange, and project directories go green:

# ~/.p10k.zsh — directory colors
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_DIR_BACKGROUND=24          # deep navy
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_DIR_FOREGROUND_FROM=81    # teal
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_DIR_FOREGROUND_TO=213     # pink
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_DIR_FOREGROUND_GRADIENT=true

# Per-directory class gradients
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_DIR_CLASSES=(
  '~/Documents/New project(|/*)'  PROJECT    ''
  '~/jhu_phd(|/*)'               PHD        ''
  '~/Downloads(|/*)'             DOWNLOADS  ''
  '~(|/*)'                        HOME       ''
  '*'                             DEFAULT    ''
)

Transient prompt

Once a command finishes, its full prompt collapses to a simple ❯. This keeps scrollback clean — only the current prompt shows all the segments. Set with:

typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_TRANSIENT_PROMPT=always

Transient prompt in action: older commands show a minimal ❯, the current line gets the full prompt with directory, git, and right-side segments.

Plugins

Four plugins via Oh My Zsh, plus fzf-tab loaded separately:

# ~/.zshrc
plugins=(
  git
  zsh-autosuggestions
  zsh-syntax-highlighting
  history-substring-search
)

fzf-tab replaces the default zsh completion menu with an fzf-powered popup. Tab-completing cd, git checkout, or kill now shows a fuzzy-searchable list with previews.

Syntax Highlighting and Autosuggestions

The default syntax highlighting colors are garish against a dark background. I tone everything down to muted greys, then highlight specific command patterns so dangerous commands stand out:

# Muted defaults
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[command]='fg=250'
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_STYLES[unknown-token]='fg=203'  # red for errors

# Pattern-based highlights for specific commands
ZSH_HIGHLIGHT_PATTERNS+=(
  'sudo *'    'fg=141,bold'     # purple
  'rm *'      'fg=203,bold'     # red
  'git *'     'fg=#A6E22E'      # green
  'ssh *'     'fg=#66D9EF'      # cyan
)

Autosuggestions are set to a Monokai yellow (#E6DB74) so they're visible but clearly different from the command you're typing.

Modern CLI Replacements

These aliases shadow the default commands so muscle memory stays intact:

# ~/.zshrc
alias ls="lsd --group-dirs=first --icon=always"
alias ll="ls -lh"
alias la="ls -lha"
alias lt="ls --tree"
alias cat="bat --theme='Monokai Extended' --style=plain"

• lsd adds file-type icons, human-readable sizes, and relative timestamps to directory listings.
• bat provides syntax-highlighted file previews with the Monokai Extended theme.
• ripgrep (rg) replaces grep for code search — respects .gitignore, smart case by default.
• fd replaces find with sane defaults and a simpler syntax.
• zoxide replaces cd with a frecency-ranked directory jumper. z project-name jumps to your most-used match.

lsd -lha output showing file-type icons, permissions, sizes, and relative dates.

Fuzzy Finding with fzf

fzf ties into three keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl-R for history search, Ctrl-T for file search, and Alt-C for directory navigation. I configure it to use fd for file listing (faster than the default find), bat for file previews, and lsd for directory previews:

# Use fd for file listing
export FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND='fd --type f --hidden --follow --exclude .git'
export FZF_CTRL_T_COMMAND="$FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND"

# Bat preview for Ctrl-T, lsd preview for Alt-C
export FZF_CTRL_T_OPTS="--preview 'bat --style=numbers --color=always --line-range :200 {}'"
export FZF_ALT_C_OPTS="--preview 'lsd --icon=always --color=always -A {}'"

The fzf popup itself is styled to match the Monokai palette — dark background, pink highlights, green info text:

export FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS="--height=40% --layout=reverse --border \
  --color=fg:#f8f8f2,bg:#272822,hl:#f92672,fg+:#f8f8f2,bg+:#3e3d32,hl+:#f92672,\
info:#a6e22e,prompt:#66d9ef,pointer:#f92672,marker:#a6e22e"

Git + Delta

delta replaces the default git diff pager with syntax-highlighted, line-numbered diffs. Configure it in ~/.gitconfig:

# ~/.gitconfig
[core]
  pager = delta
[interactive]
  diffFilter = delta --color-only
[delta]
  navigate = true
  line-numbers = true
  syntax-theme = Monokai Extended

This means git diff, git log -p, and git show all get the improved rendering automatically. The navigate option lets you jump between diff hunks with n and N.

Git Aliases

The git plugin in Oh My Zsh (already in the plugins=() list above) defines several hundred aliases. These are the ones I actually use daily:

# Staging and committing
gaa       # git add --all
gcmsg "fix: ..."  # git commit --message "fix: ..."

# Push / pull
ggpush    # git push origin <current-branch>
ggpull    # git pull origin <current-branch>
gp        # git push
gl        # git pull

# Status and diff
gst       # git status
gd        # git diff
gdca      # git diff --cached

# Branching
gcb new-branch  # git checkout -b new-branch
gco main       # git checkout main
gb             # git branch

# Log
glog      # git log --oneline --decorate --graph
glol      # git log --graph --pretty (colored, with author + date)

Run alias | grep git to see the full list. The ones above cover the common add-commit-push cycle and save a surprising amount of typing over a day.

History and Completions

A 200K-line shared history with deduplication:

HISTSIZE=200000
SAVEHIST=200000
setopt HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS SHARE_HISTORY EXTENDED_HISTORY

Autosuggestions vs. substring search

These two plugins look similar but serve different purposes and work together:

• zsh-autosuggestions shows a single ghost completion inline (in Monokai yellow) as you type, based on your most recent matching history entry. Accept the suggestion with the right arrow key (→).
• history-substring-search lets you cycle through multiple matches with the arrow keys. Type a prefix like ssh, press Up, and it filters history to only commands containing ssh — press Up again to see the next match, Down to go back.

# Bind Up/Down to substring search (not plain history scroll)
bindkey '^[[A' history-substring-search-up
bindkey '^[[B' history-substring-search-down

Without these bindings, Up/Down would cycle through all history chronologically regardless of what you've typed. With them, they filter to matches. Combined with Ctrl-R (fzf fuzzy history search), you get three complementary ways to recall commands.

Colored man pages

The LESS_TERMCAP variables add color to man pages without any external tools. Headers in yellow, underlined text in cyan, search matches highlighted in blue:

export LESS_TERMCAP_md=$'\e[1;33m'  # bold/headers: yellow
export LESS_TERMCAP_us=$'\e[1;36m'  # underline: cyan
export LESS_TERMCAP_so=$'\e[1;44;97m'  # search matches: blue bg

Startup Banner

Each new shell prints a system summary via neofetch (or fastfetch if installed). It shows OS, kernel, CPU usage, memory, GPU utilization, disk space, and the top processes by CPU and memory — all pulled from a custom config that gathers macOS-specific metrics:

# A `fetch` function in .zshrc that runs on first prompt
# Collects: CPU temp, GPU util/mem, disk free, top CPU/MEM process
# Then passes them as environment variables to neofetch's custom config
fetch() {
  if command -v fastfetch >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    fastfetch; return
  fi
  # Falls back to neofetch with custom ~/.neofetch-funky.conf
  ...
}

The banner is disabled in non-interactive shells and can be toggled off with export FUNKY_BANNER=0.

Workflow Aliases

A few shell functions for tasks I do often enough to want a short command:

PDF compression

Wraps Ghostscript. The quality parameter controls the tradeoff — prepress retains high fidelity (good for papers), ebook is more aggressive, screen is smallest.

# pdfcompress input.pdf [output.pdf] [screen|ebook|printer|prepress]
pdfcompress() {
  gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/"$quality" \
     -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile="$output" "$input"
}
# pdfcompress icml26_robust_metrics.pdf icml_draft.pdf prepress

Image frames to video

# frames2vid ./rendered_frames/ 30 output.mp4
frames2vid() {
  ffmpeg -framerate "$fps" -pattern_type glob -i "${dir}/*.png" \
         -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -crf 18 "$output"
}

Video compression

Uses the baseline H.264 profile and level 3.0 for compatibility across browsers, presentation software, and mobile devices:

# vidcompress input.mp4 [output.mp4]
vidcompress() {
  ffmpeg -i "$input" -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p \
         -profile:v baseline -level 3.0 "$output"
}
# vidcompress diffusion.mp4 diffusion_ppt.mp4

rsync shortcuts

The -z flag compresses during transfer (useful over SSH to remote clusters), and --inplace avoids creating temporary copies on the remote, which matters when pushing large checkpoints to a shared filesystem:

# Upload (with compression, resume, and common excludes)
alias rup="rsync -avzP --inplace --exclude='.git' --exclude='__pycache__' --exclude='wandb'"
# Download
alias rdn="rsync -avzP --inplace"

# rup mvdream-sd21.ckpt ccvl32:/datasets/spaul/ckpt/
# rdn dsai:/scratch/spaul27/results/ ./results/

Universal extract

# Handles tar, zip, gz, bz2, xz, 7z, rar
extract() {
  case "$1" in
    *.tar.gz|*.tgz)   tar xzf "$1" ;;
    *.tar.xz|*.txz)   tar xJf "$1" ;;
    *.zip)             unzip "$1" ;;
    *.7z)              7z x "$1" ;;
    ...
  esac
}

Dotfiles

The complete config files referenced above:

• ~/.zshrc — shell config, plugins, aliases, workflow functions
• ~/.p10k.zsh — Powerlevel10k prompt segments and colors
• ~/.gitconfig — delta pager configuration
• ~/.config/lsd/config.yaml — lsd icon and sorting settings
• ~/.neofetch-funky.conf — custom neofetch layout with macOS metrics