macOS

re.Brew

Your dotfiles, re-brewed.

Bootstrap a fresh Mac in minutes. Manage dotfiles across machines.
Audit every installed app and migrate to Homebrew — effortlessly.

Clone on GitHub See it live ↓
bash — ~/redotbrew
▌

How it works

Three commands. One fully-managed Mac.

1

Bootstrap

Run ./bootstrap.sh on any fresh Mac. It installs Homebrew, your Brewfile, dotfiles via Stow, and nvm + Node LTS — in a single pass.

→
2

Manage Dotfiles

Use ./bin/stow_all.sh to symlink Zsh, Git, VS Code, and SSH configs from the repo into $HOME. Change once, synced everywhere.

→
3

Audit & Migrate

Run ./bin/scan_apps_brew_check.sh to scan every app and CLI tool, check Homebrew coverage, and get an interactive HTML report.

Everything you need

Four focused tools. One cohesive Mac workflow.

⚡

bootstrap.sh

One-command Mac setup. Installs Homebrew, runs your Brewfile, applies dotfiles, and bootstraps nvm + Node LTS. Prompts for your Git identity — never committed to the repo.

Idempotent --dry-run Git identity
🔗

stow_all.sh

Powered by GNU Stow. Symlinks your configs from the repo into $HOME — no copying, no drift. Use --dry-run to preview or --adopt to pull in existing files.

GNU Stow Selective --adopt
📊

App Audit Dashboard

Scans /Applications and your full $PATH. Checks every item against the Homebrew catalog. Outputs a self-contained HTML dashboard with bar charts, live search, and per-app migration guidance.

Interactive HTML CSV export Parallel scan
🗂

Brewfile

A curated manifest of Homebrew formulas, casks, and 60+ VS Code extensions. Fully reproducible. Edit once, apply everywhere with brew bundle.

Formulas Casks VS Code

See the audit dashboard live

The interactive HTML report generated by scan_apps_brew_check.sh — sample data shown.

~/Downloads/installed_apps_audit.html

Generate yours: ./bin/scan_apps_brew_check.sh && open ~/Downloads/installed_apps_audit.html

Quick start

Up and running in three steps.

1 — Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/tmdbah/redotbrew.git ~/redotbrew
cd ~/redotbrew
2 — Preview with dry-run
./bootstrap.sh --dry-run
3 — Bootstrap your Mac
./bootstrap.sh
Full docs on GitHub →

Built on top of Homebrew

re.Brew stands on the shoulders of Homebrew — the Missing Package Manager for macOS. Homebrew's formula and cask ecosystem is what makes reproducible Mac setups possible. Huge respect to the Homebrew maintainers and community for building such an indispensable tool.

Powered by GNU Stow

Dotfile management in re.Brew is powered by GNU Stow — the elegant symlink farm manager. Stow makes it possible to version-control your configs and reproduce them on any machine with a single command. Sincere thanks to the GNU Stow maintainers for such a simple and reliable tool.