mac-onboarding

Configuring a fresh Mac is a repetitive slog. Every new machine means reinstalling Homebrew packages, copying dotfiles, adjusting system preferences, syncing hotkeys, and reconfiguring shell environments. For developers juggling multiple machines—whether freelancers working across client infrastructure or IT teams managing MDM-enrolled fleets—this overhead drains productivity and invites consistency errors.

Mac-onboarding solves this by capturing an entire configuration state from one machine and replaying it on another with a single command. The export step archives 21 distinct configuration modules, spanning Homebrew packages, shell configs, system settings, application preferences, hotkeys, and dozens of specialized tools. The install step unpacks everything onto a fresh target Mac, automating what would otherwise require manual recreation.

What distinguishes this tool from simpler dotfile repos or conventional configuration management approaches is its explicit respect for the constraints of managed environments. Organizations using Mobile Device Management to enforce security policies risk breaking enrollment if configuration tooling overwrites protected system defaults. Mac-onboarding acknowledges this friction—it explicitly refuses to touch settings that MDM controls, and it avoids migrating SSH keys that require careful per-environment handling. This pragmatism signals the tool was built by someone who has actually operated within corporate infrastructure, not just imagined it.

Privacy is similarly foregrounded as a first-class concern rather than an afterthought. The entire workflow runs offline and locally. Secrets—API keys, git credentials, and other sensitive material extracted from shell configuration files—are automatically redacted before archiving, preventing accidental leakage. The archive is inspectable via standard tar utilities, giving users genuine transparency about what gets captured and stored.

The product supports 21 modules covering major development tools (Kitty, Claude, Tailscale, OrbStack), utilities (Alfred, Synology, 1Password), and system-level preferences. A bridge mode allows pulling configuration directly from a source machine via Tailscale SSH, bypassing the archive step entirely for environments with direct network access.

The tool is open source under the MIT license, available via Homebrew or direct download, and built as a single compiled binary with no runtime dependencies. There is no mention of pricing or proprietary licensing, confirming this is a free utility maintained by its creator for the developer community.