cutlerv0.8.0

Powerful, declarative settings management for your Mac, with speed.
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cutler aims to simplify your macOS setup experience into an "almost" one-command procedure. Define your settings once, then easily apply, track, and revert changes across your system—think of it as infrastructure-as-code for your Mac.

This website is just an overview of what cutler can do. In order to get a comprehensive guide on what cutler can do, please read the official README.

If you like this project, consider ⭐ starring it! :D

Installation

Just a single command and you're ready to go!

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hitblast/cutler/main/install.sh)"

Or, use one of the following:

Using brew

brew install hitblast/tap/cutler

Using cargo

cargo install cutler

Using mise

mise use -g cargo:cutler

Learn more about cutler by running either of these commands:

# Included manpage (brew/manual)
man cutler

# or, the included help menu:
cutler help

Configuration

In order to setup a comprehensive example on your Mac automatically, use this command: 

cutler init

Check out the example configuration files to get started quickly!

Shell Integrations

For bash users

cutler completion bash > cutler.bash
mv cutler.bash ~/.bash-completion.d/

For zsh users

cutler completion zsh > _cutler
mv _cutler ~/.zfunc/

Other shells like powershell, elvish and fish are also available.

Commands Cookbook

Apply your settings

cutler apply

# or, skip external commands (see reference below)
cutler apply --no-exec

# or, also invoke `cutler brew install`
cutler apply --with-brew

This command applies all settings from your config file and restarts necessary system services.

Check current status

cutler status

Compares your configuration with current system settings.
See Shell Integrations for another use case of this command in your terminal.

Revert changes

cutler unapply

Removes all settings applied by cutler.

Hard-reset config defaults

cutler reset --force

Resets every defaults domain written in the config file to factory settings.
NOTE: This should ONLY be used as a fallback option to cutler unapply.

Manage configuration file

# Shows the contents of the configuration file
cutler config show

# Unapplies and deletes the configuration file
cutler config delete

Manage updates

# Check only
cutler check-update

# or, upgrade directly (if installed manually):
cutler self-update

Manage Homebrew

cutler eliminates manually installing packages by hand and using bundle files for storing their identifiers using just these two commands: 

# Backup installed casks and formulae
# This will store all formula/cask names to cutler.toml
cutler brew backup

# Optionally, you can add the --no-deps flag
# This will only backup the formulae/casks which aren't a dependency.
cutler brew backup --no-deps

# Now, to install from your cutler.toml file:
cutler brew install

External Commands

When you apply your defaults using cutler, you can also define custom external commands to be executed in a post-hook fashion: 

# A basic hello
[commands.greet]
cmd = "echo \"Hello World\""

This translates to running:

echo "Hello World"

For more complex scenarios, you can use a more advanced structure with separate arguments and variables: 

# Define reusable variables here:
[vars]
common_args = ["Hello", "World"]
some_string = "Pancakes!"

[commands.greet]
run = "echo $common_args"
sudo = false

If you want to run them:

# combined execution
cutler exec

# or
cutler exec greet

Some Personal Take

Just a fun part of the project! If you scroll around the GitHub Releases section, you will see more "personal takes" which are randomly written notes of mine to share some open thoughts.

Anyways, cutler is one of my favorite concurrent hobby projects right now. If you'd like to support me, consider starring this project! :3

⭐ View Source on GitHub 📚 macOS Defaults Reference