Zsh with antidote, Oh My Zsh and Powerlevel10k

Goal: a fast, reproducible Zsh set-up: antidote loads Oh My Zsh plugins, completions, autosuggestions and syntax highlighting, Powerlevel10k draws the prompt, and history is shared and deduplicated. The same three files rebuild it on any machine.

Verification: antidote commands and annotations were checked against antidote 2.3.0 on Ubuntu, and the plugin list below is the one in use there. The Nerd Font step and a from-scratch run on a clean machine were not repeated for this recipe.

Prerequisites #

Zsh 5.x and Git (sudo apt install zsh git on Debian or Ubuntu)
A terminal using a Nerd Font (MesloLGS NF is the Powerlevel10k default)
Zsh as your login shell: chsh -s "$(command -v zsh)", then log out and in

Steps #

Back up what you have.
bash
```
cp ~/.zshrc ~/.zshrc.bak
```

Create the plugin list at ~/.zsh_plugins.txt.

text
# Oh My Zsh core, loaded without the framework
getantidote/use-omz
ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh path:lib

# Theme
romkatv/powerlevel10k

# Oh My Zsh plugins
ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh path:plugins/git
ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh path:plugins/sudo
ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh path:plugins/extract
ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh path:plugins/history

# Completions, suggestions and highlighting (highlighting last)
zsh-users/zsh-completions
zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions
zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting

Write ~/.zshrc (see zshrc for the full annotated version).

zsh
if [[ -r "${XDG_CACHE_HOME:-$HOME/.cache}/p10k-instant-prompt-${(%):-%n}.zsh" ]]; then
  source "${XDG_CACHE_HOME:-$HOME/.cache}/p10k-instant-prompt-${(%):-%n}.zsh"
fi

typeset -U PATH path

[[ -e ${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.antidote ]] ||
  git clone --depth=1 --quiet https://github.com/mattmc3/antidote.git ${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.antidote
source ${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.antidote/antidote.zsh
zsh_plugins=${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.zsh_plugins
if [[ ! ${zsh_plugins}.zsh -nt ${zsh_plugins}.txt ]]; then
  antidote bundle <${zsh_plugins}.txt >${zsh_plugins}.zsh
fi
source ${zsh_plugins}.zsh

HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history
HISTSIZE=100000
SAVEHIST=100000
setopt EXTENDED_HISTORY SHARE_HISTORY HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS HIST_IGNORE_SPACE HIST_VERIFY

zstyle ':completion:*' menu select
autoload -Uz compinit && compinit

[[ ! -f ~/.p10k.zsh ]] || source ~/.p10k.zsh

Start a new shell. antidote clones itself and each plugin on first run, then the Powerlevel10k wizard starts. If it does not, run:
bash
```
exec zsh
p10k configure
```
Add or remove plugins later by editing ~/.zsh_plugins.txt. The static file rebuilds on the next shell start.
Update everything with antidote update (see antidote).

Verify #

COMMAND	EXPECTED
`echo $ZSH_VERSION`	A 5.x version
`antidote list`	The cloned plugins from your list
`type gst`	`gst` is an alias for `git status` (from the OMZ git plugin)
`print -P '%F{green}ok%f'`	Green `ok`
`time zsh -i -c exit`	Well under a second after the first run
`p10k help segment`	Prints help (proves the theme loaded)

Troubleshooting #

SYMPTOM	FIX
No plugins load	`~/.zsh_plugins.zsh` empty or stale: delete it, start a new shell, read any error
Warning about output during start-up	Something prints before the prompt; move it above the instant prompt block or silence it
Icons are boxes	Select the Nerd Font in the terminal profile
OMZ plugin errors on a missing function	`getantidote/use-omz` and `ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh path:lib` must come before OMZ plugins in the list
Completions missing for a new tool	`rm -f ~/.zcompdump*; exec zsh`
History not shared	Check `SHARE_HISTORY` is set and `HISTFILE` points to the same file in both shells

Rollback #

bash
cp ~/.zshrc.bak ~/.zshrc
rm -rf ~/.antidote ~/.cache/antidote ~/.zsh_plugins.zsh ~/.zsh_plugins.txt ~/.p10k.zsh
exec zsh