macOS Catalina uses zsh as the new default shell (instead of bash) in Terminal. This means that many people will be looking to re-setup their CLI with ~/.zshrc instead of ~/.bash_profile.

While customizing my .zshrc was a hassle, it was also an opportunity to clean up my profile and remove legacy settings.

Zsh offers an optional right side prompt, but I only used the left side prompt for now.

Here are some misc tips that I’ve found helpful:

• For basic PS1 exports (time/date, current dir, user, etc), you can find examples here. Things like %D for the current date, %~ for the current directoy, and more.
• In your PS1 export, you can start color formatting with %F{117} and end color formatting with %f. Replace 117 with whatever color your desire. You can find color codes here.
• You can make your tab auto completion case insensitive (ignore case) by adding:
  zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list 'm:{[:lower:]}={[:upper:]}'
autoload -Uz compinit && compinit -i
• You can show your current git branch with:
  autoload -Uz vcs_info
precmd() { vcs_info }
zstyle ':vcs_info:git:*' formats '(%b)'
setopt prompt_subst
  Note: you also need to add $vcs_info_msg_0_ in your PS1 export line.

I’ve thought about creating a zshrc WYSIWYG tool, ala Halloween Bash, but I’ve shelved those plans since there’s only so much time in a day. With macOS Catalina inevitable for macOS users, more and more people are going to be looking for easy ~/.zshrc customization.