Mac OS - Aliases Management#

Keep Mac Studio and MacBook Air in Sync

The Mac Studio is the source of truth for the shared aliases. Edit and publish changes there, then pull them onto the MacBook Air.

On the Mac Studio — edit and publish:

nano ~/Scripts/MacOS/Aliases/MacOS-Aliases.zsh
source ~/.zshrc
pushscripts

pushscripts commits and pushes pending changes in the ~/Scripts repository.

On the MacBook Air — download and apply:

pullscripts
source ~/.zshrc

If an open terminal still shows old aliases, open a new terminal window. The shared aliases are in ~/Scripts/MacOS/Aliases/MacOS-Aliases.zsh; ~/.zshrc is local to each Mac and must source that file.

Installing and Launching Pi (pi.dev)#

Follow these steps to set up the Pi coding agent on your Mac Studio and link it straight to your custom local short-context models.

1 Environment Preparation#

Because Pi is a JavaScript terminal application, it runs on Node.js. If you do not have Node installed yet, use Homebrew to get it ready.

1.1 Install Node.js via Homebrew#

brew install node

2 Installation#

Install the official global Pi command-line tool. As noted in the documentation, we include the security flag to bypass unnecessary third-party package scripts.

macOS System Administration & Optimization#

Workstation Recovery & Rebuild Standard: If you need to rebuild your Mac Studio or synchronize its software and aliases with another Mac, refer to the master checklist at Mac OS - Recovery.

1 Modify Known Hosts for SSH#

# Add description
nano ~/.ssh/known_hosts

# To remove a specific host
ssh-keygen -R 10.1.1.14

# Clear the full file
cat /dev/null > ~/.ssh/known_hosts

2 Disk Management & Diagnostics#

2.1 Identify and Verify Disks#

# List all physical and virtual disks
diskutil list

# Verify a specific disk (replace X with disk number)
diskutil verifyDisk /dev/diskX

2.2 SMART Monitoring (via Homebrew)#

# Install smartmontools
brew install smartmontools

# Check health of the primary NVMe drive
smartctl -a /dev/disk0

3 Homebrew Package Manager#

Official site: brew.sh

Windows 11 Optimization & SSH Setup#

This guide covers privacy hardening by disabling the “Recall” feature and setting up SSH keys for remote access to your homelab infrastructure.

1. Managing Windows Recall (AI Privacy)#

Windows Recall captures snapshots of your screen to help you find things you’ve seen. For increased privacy, you can manage this feature via the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool.

Check Status#

Run Command Prompt (CMD) as Administrator and execute: