Licenses
Keyboard Maestro and Rectangle Pro license material should live in a secure password manager, not in git.
Installation is fast. State restore is where the machine becomes yours again.
Homebrew gets the apps on disk. This page is the short manual list for the things that still have to be signed into, licensed, or nudged back into the right shape.
Keep this page close while rebuilding. It is the part most likely to be forgotten after a few months away.
Core Restore Checklist
Do these in roughly this order so the machine starts feeling normal quickly.
- Sign into Vivaldi and confirm sync brings back workspaces, bookmarks, and extensions.
- Sign into VS Code and enable Settings Sync.
- Reconnect Codex and Claude to the repos and workflows you use daily.
- Restore Antigravity if it is part of the current coding flow.
- Import or sync Keyboard Maestro macros and reconnect launcher and clipboard shortcuts.
- Activate Rectangle Pro and restore the expected window movement shortcuts.
- Reconnect Karabiner-Elements rules if the keyboard layer is part of the current machine.
- Restore BetterDisplay presets if external monitor layouts and brightness mappings matter on this desk.
- Open Obsidian and reconnect vaults and plugins.
- Reconnect Logseq graphs and confirm any git-based graph backup still points at the right remote.
- Restore MailMate accounts, IMAP settings, and message rules.
- Sign into Tailscale, restore Little Snitch rules if you export them, and confirm OrbStack starts with the expected local container state.
- Check Shottr and Kap preferences if output folders or shortcut bindings matter.
Things Worth Storing Outside This Repo
Document the restore source, not the secret itself.
Exports
Keyboard Maestro exports, browser backup flows, Logseq graphs, Karabiner profiles, and any Little Snitch rule exports should live in a separate private backup path.
Account-heavy setups
Keep a note of which logins must be restored, but avoid turning the repo into a secrets checklist.