bootstrap_dev_env

A Go-based bootstrap tool that installs a development environment across macOS, Debian/Ubuntu, RHEL/Fedora, and Arch Linux on x86_64 and aarch64. It installs system packages, optional Flatpak GUI apps, and a set of custom third-party tools (Go, Neovim, Zig, NVM, pyenv, oh-my-zsh, Firecracker on Linux, agy, claude, codex, and copilot).

Install

Download the native binary for your platform from a release, or build from source:

git clone https://github.com/JMR-dev/bootstrap_dev_env.git
cd bootstrap_dev_env
make build           # builds ./bootstrap_environment for the host

To produce native binaries for all four supported targets at once:

make build-all       # writes dist/bootstrap_environment-{linux,darwin}-{amd64,arm64}

Usage

# Linux (do NOT use sudo on macOS — Homebrew refuses to run as root)
sudo ./bootstrap_environment [--only system|flatpak|custom] [--gui]

# macOS
./bootstrap_environment [--only system|custom] [--gui] [--no-vm]

Flags:

• --only — restrict to one section (system, flatpak, or custom).
• --gui — include GUI applications and the Flatpak section. Default is headless: both are skipped.
• --no-vm — macOS only: skip provisioning the Fedora-on-QEMU/VirtualBox VM that backs the firecracker() zsh wrapper.
• --no-ai — skip installation of AI/LLM CLI tools (agy, claude, codex, copilot).

Package lists live in packages.go. Edit and rebuild.