If you installed Oh My Zsh and never touched your .zshrc again, you're sitting on 100+ lines of commented-out template garbage. Here's how to clean it up and actually make your shell useful.

Step 1: Clean up .zshrc

Your default .zshrc probably looks like this:

# If you come from bash you might have to change your $PATH.
# export PATH=$HOME/bin:$HOME/.local/bin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH

# Path to your Oh My Zsh installation.
export ZSH="$HOME/.oh-my-zsh"

# Set name of the theme to load --- if set to "random", it will
# load a random theme each time Oh My Zsh is loaded, in which case,
# to know which specific one was loaded, run: echo $RANDOM_THEME
# See https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/wiki/Themes
ZSH_THEME="robbyrussell"

# ... 80 more lines of comments ...

plugins=(git)

source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh

# ... even more comments ...

Strip it down to what actually matters:

export ZSH="$HOME/.oh-my-zsh"
ZSH_THEME="robbyrussell"
plugins=(git zsh-autosuggestions zsh-syntax-highlighting)

source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh

# Custom configs
for file in ~/Develop/Config/ZSH/*; do
    [ -f "$file" ] && source "$file"
done

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

I keep my custom configs in a separate directory and source them all in a loop. This way each concern (aliases, proxy, language runtimes) lives in its own file.

Step 2: Set up shell history

The default history settings are terrible. Your shell forgets everything after 30 commands.

Create a history.zsh in your custom config directory:

HISTSIZE=10000
SAVEHIST=10000
HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history
setopt HIST_IGNORE_DUPS
setopt HIST_IGNORE_SPACE
setopt SHARE_HISTORY

Now your history survives across sessions, deduplicates entries, and shares between multiple terminal windows. Prefix a command with a space if you don't want it recorded.

Step 3: Install useful plugins

The default Oh My Zsh only gives you git. Install these two — they're life changing:

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions \
  ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting \
  ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting

Then add them to your plugins list:

plugins=(git zsh-autosuggestions zsh-syntax-highlighting)

• zsh-autosuggestions — shows ghost text suggestions from your history as you type. Press right arrow or End to accept.
• zsh-syntax-highlighting — highlights commands in green if valid, red if not. You'll catch typos before hitting Enter.

Step 4: Add some aliases

Create an aliases.zsh:

# Navigation
alias ..='cd ..'
alias ...='cd ../..'

# ls
alias ll='ls -la'
alias la='ls -A'

# Git shortcuts
alias gs='git status'
alias gc='git commit'
alias gp='git push'
alias gl='git log --oneline -20'

# Safety
alias rm='rm -i'
alias cp='cp -i'
alias mv='mv -i'

# Homebrew
alias brewup='brew update && brew upgrade && brew cleanup'
alias brewd='brew doctor'
alias brewls='brew list --versions'

The safety aliases make rm, cp, and mv prompt before overwriting. You'll thank yourself the day you almost delete something important.

Step 5: Toggle proxy on and off

If you use a proxy (and you probably do if you're in China), don't hardcode it in your shell config. That breaks things when you don't need it — like accessing domestic services or local development servers.

Instead, use functions:

proxy() {
  export https_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:7890
  export http_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:7890
  export all_proxy=socks5://127.0.0.1:7890
  export no_proxy=localhost,127.0.0.1,::1,*.cn
  echo "Proxy enabled"
}

unproxy() {
  unset https_proxy http_proxy all_proxy no_proxy
  echo "Proxy disabled"
}

Type proxy to turn it on, unproxy to turn it off. Simple.

Step 6: Guard your source commands

If you have config files that reference tools that might not be installed (like Rust), wrap them in a check:

if [ -d "$HOME/.cargo" ]; then
  export CARGO_HOME="$HOME/.cargo"
  export RUSTUP_HOME="$HOME/.rustup"
  [ -f "$HOME/.cargo/env" ] && source "$HOME/.cargo/env"
fi

This prevents annoying no such file or directory errors on every shell startup.

Final result

After all this, your .zshrc goes from 113 lines of mostly comments to 13 lines of actual config. Your shell starts faster, remembers more, suggests commands, highlights errors, and your proxy doesn't get in the way.

Open a new terminal and everything just works.