My work Macbook had to be sent in for repair, and the hard drive got wiped. I documented all the steps I took to set it up again. You can use this as a starting point for setting up a new machine, and so can I if I need to do this again soon!
System preferences and settings
Went to System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys to switch Option and Command on the Dell USB keyboard that I use, since by default the key closer to the spacebar was option (unlike the native Mac keyboard).
Disabled Cisco AnyConnect on startup because it was annoying me (source).
Allowed any apps that I download to be run, since Catalina is very protective. The command was sudo spctl --master-disable, from here.
Removed all the extra icons from my dock.
Deleted the company wallpaper by moving a different file into /Library/Desktop Pictures/<filename>.jpg.
Changed the name of the computer (command sudo scutil --set HostName <new name>).
Signed into Google Chrome, then Slack (via Google). Reconfigured the color scheme and downloaded the desktop client.
Signed into Facebook Messenger and Android Messages.
Software downloads and setup
Installed Scroll Reverser so that my USB mouse scrolled the right way.
Installed Ukelele to create a custom keyboard layout; I have underscore and hyphen swapped, so pressing that key gives an underscore. I also have most of my option + letter combinations mapped to Greek letters. I created the layout, saved it, and copied it to /Library/Keyboard Layouts (source).
Installed Hugo for my website.
Installed VS Code, plus the Python extension and SSH extension. I had to refer to this SO post to stop my Mac from blocking the installation.
Installed Sublime Text 3. Symlinked subl command to open up Sublime Text using these instructions. Installed Package Control within Sublime, then downloaded and activated the Ayu theme.
Installed ITerm2 and my .zshrc (backed up from my old computer). Enabled ITerm2 > Preferences > Profiles > Keys > Load Preset > Natural Text Editing to let me use combinations like option+backspace in the terminal.
Installed itermplot to plot inline in my terminal.
Installed powerline-shell, downloaded and installed a patched font, and enabled it via ITerm2 > Preferences > Profiles > Text > Change Font. Changed the powerline-shell config, which I generated with these instructions, then removed my username and hostname from the default setup.
Environment and code setup
Installed Miniconda.
Cloned my project repo for work. Created a conda environment for the project.
Set up my SSH keys: ran ssh-keygen, added it to work Bitbucket, added it to personal Github, added it to our team’s training box. To do this, I sent my public key to a different computer that had access, saved it to a file, then ran cat that_key_file | ssh tushar@wherever "cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys" to put it on the machine. Added an alias to ~/.ssh/config.
Cloned my personal website, cloned my deployed website, moved the latter into the site directory of the former. Wrote this post as a test that everything works!