🐱 meow

The purr-fect dotfiles management system that sets up your development environment with a single meow.

meow - Purr-fect Development Environment

meow was born from the desire to eliminate the repetitive and time-consuming task of setting up a development environment from scratch. Instead of manually installing packages, cloning repositories, and symlinking configuration files for hours, meow lets you do it all with a single command.

It uses a powerful preset system to deploy a complete, tailored environment, so you can get straight to coding. Whether you're setting up a new personal laptop, a corporate workstation, or a disposable development container, meow has a purr-fect setup for you.

📋 Table of Contents

• 🖼️ Screenshots
• ✨ Features
• 📋 Prerequisites
• 🚀 Getting Started
• 💡 Usage
• 🎨 Customization
• 🧩 Components
• 🔧 Troubleshooting
• 🤝 Contributing
• 📄 License
• 🙏 Acknowledgments

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🖼️ Screenshots

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✨ Features

meow provides a comprehensive development-environment setup with these key capabilities.

🎯 Preset System

Preset	Description	File
Personal	Environment focused on development of pet projects and entertainment	personal.yaml
Corporate	Work-focused Go development environment	corporate.yaml
Litterbox Essential	Minimal base setup, ideal for containers	litterbox-essential.yaml
Litterbox Go	Container-friendly Go environment	litterbox-go.yaml

🔧 Development Environments

• Go Development – language server, debugger, and tooling
• JavaScript/TypeScript – Node.js tool-chain, language servers, formatters
• Kotlin Development – Kotlin compiler and tooling
• .NET Development – .NET SDK and CLI tools
• React Development – React-specific extensions to JS setup
• Web Development – CSS frameworks, build tools, HTTP testing
• Game Development – tooling and engines, including Godot
• Markdown – technical-writing helpers, linters, presenters

🐾 User Experience

• Automatic Configuration – dotfile linking and application setup
• One-Command Installation – simple script-based deployment
• Modular Components – mix-and-match to build a custom setup
• Dependency Resolution – automatic component-dependency handling

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📋 Prerequisites

Required

Requirement	Supported
OS	macOS · Alpine · Debian/Ubuntu · Arch
Shell	Bash ≥ 3.2
Internet	Needed to download packages & tools
Git	For cloning the repository and submodules

Bash compatibility: meow works with the default Bash 3.2 that ships with macOS, avoiding the chicken-and-egg problem of needing a newer shell to install a newer shell.

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🚀 Getting Started

1. Choose your preset – e.g. personal, corporate.
2. Run the one-command setup – copy/paste the snippet below.
3. Restart your shell – open a new terminal window.

One-Command Setup — Personal

git clone --recursive https://github.com/retran/meow.git ~/.meow && cd ~/.meow && ./bin/install.sh personal

One-Command Setup — Corporate

git clone --recursive https://github.com/retran/meow.git ~/.meow && cd ~/.meow && ./bin/install.sh corporate

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💡 Usage

Your environment is ready to use as soon as the installer finishes.

Keeping It Updated

cd ~/.meow
./bin/update.sh

The updater pulls the latest changes and reapplies the installation logic for your preset, keeping packages and dependencies fresh.

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🎨 Customization

While meow ships with handy presets, its true power is modularity.

Creating a Custom Preset

1. Create presets/my-setup.yaml.
2. List your desired components.
3. Install with:

cd ~/.meow
./bin/install.sh my-setup

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🧩 Components

meow uses a layered component system; each component can depend on others.

Foundation Components

• 🐚 shell-essential – Git, Tmux, Starship, Neovim, fzf, ripgrep, zoxide
• 🔧 shell-development – shellcheck, shfmt, bash-language-server, yamllint
• 🎨 fonts – JetBrains Mono, Nerd Fonts
• 🖥️ desktop-essential – GUI foundation (fonts, browser, terminal, VS Code)
• 🛠️ core-development – GitHub CLI, LSPs, formatters, go-task
• 📦 node – Node.js runtime & npm
• 🐍 pipx – Python app isolation & launch

Development Environments

• 🐳 docker-cli – Docker CLI tooling
• 🐋 docker-desktop – Docker Desktop (macOS)
• 🐹 go-development – gopls, delve, staticcheck, air, templ, swag
• ⚡ js-development – JS/TS tool-chain
• ⚛️ react-development – React extensions to JS setup
• 🌐 web-development – advanced web stack (extends React)
• 🦀 rust-development – Rust compiler & tooling
• 🗾 kotlin-development – Kotlin tool-chain
• 🦄 dotnet-development – .NET SDK & tools
• 🌙 lua-development – Lua runtime & tools
• 🐍 python-development – Python dev-stack
• 🎮 game-development – development tools for Godot
• 📝 markdown – writing & presentation helpers

Communication & Productivity

• 💼 corporate-communication – professional comms tools
• 👥 personal-communication – personal messaging apps
• 📋 productivity – productivity & workflow helpers

Entertainment & Media

• 🎮 gaming – Steam, NVIDIA GeForce Now
• 🎨 media – OBS

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🔧 Troubleshooting

Installation Fails

# Check if Git is installed
git --version

# Ensure submodules are initialised
cd ~/.meow
git submodule update --init --recursive

# Retry installation
./bin/install.sh <PRESET_NAME>

Package-Manager Issues

# Homebrew (macOS)
brew doctor

# npm
npm cache clean --force
npm install -g npm@latest

# pipx
python3 -m pip install --user --upgrade pipx
pipx ensurepath

Getting Help

1. Check the Issues page.
2. Review preset files in presets/.
3. Examine component definitions in presets/components/.

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome to help improve meow! Here's how you can help:

Ways to Contribute

• 🐛 Report bugs & issues
• 💡 Suggest features or presets
• 📝 Improve documentation
• 🔧 Submit pull requests
• 🎨 Enhance configurations
• 📦 Add new package integrations

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📄 License

Licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

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🙏 Acknowledgments

meow builds on the excellent work of the open-source community. Huge thanks to:

• Homebrew • Git • GitHub CLI
• tmux • Starship • Neovim
• Visual Studio Code • fzf
• ripgrep • zoxide
• Go • Node.js • Rust
• Raycast • Hammerspoon
• Nerd Fonts
• …and the many other projects that make development enjoyable.

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Author

meow is developed by Andrew Vasilyev with help from GitHub Copilot and feline assistants Sonya Blade, Mila, and Marcus Fenix.

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Happy coding with project meow! 🐱

Made with ❤️ by Andrew Vasilyev and feline assistants

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