After corporate IT gives out a MacBook, we run a local-only Ansible script I wrote.

It sets .zshrc, .zshenv, and .zshenv-private for tokens etc.

It also uses Homebrew to install a bunch of packages, then creates various config files.

It works well. Developer setup time went from days to less than 2 hours (corporate VPN is slow)

Edited to add:

Workflow is:

  1. Install homebrew, xcode command line tools, Ansible, and then git+credential helper.
  2. Clone repo (which ensures the new dev has correct roles/groups to access the repo)
  3. Run Ansible.

Snippet of the Ansible script:

  ---
  - name: Configure dev macOS
    hosts: localhost
    vars_prompt:
      - name: githubtoken
        prompt: What is your github token?
        private: false

    tasks:
      - name: Create variable from brew prefix
        ansible.builtin.command: "brew --prefix"
        register: brew_prefix
        changed_when: false

      - name: Update Homebrew
        community.general.homebrew:
          update_homebrew: true

      - name: Install GNU Coreutils
        community.general.homebrew:
          name: coreutils
          state: present