iTerm doesn't make a bootstrap script easy, but it's still possible. I do it.

Use this to command to set the location of the iterm config folder:

   defaults write com.googlecode.iterm2 PrefsCustomFolder -string "/path/to/iterm config folder"

Then as long as that folder exists and contains your preferred settings, when iTerm opens up it'll be exactly like you want it. (though it would have been nice if this just defaulted to $HOME/.config/iTerm)

There are a bunch of ways to do this while bootstrapping. Just store your iterm config in a dot files git repo, and then symlink it on a new system. You can even use dot bot to automate symlinks. That’s just one way of doing it, I’m sure there are many other ways.

It’s weird to hear someone proficient enough to be talking about bootstrapping a dev machine complain about solving a very trivial problem.