Oh My Zsh adds bloat

The frequent use of a popular shell framework is discouraged due to unnecessary overhead that significantly increases shell startup time, especially when opening many terminal tabs. A basic setup with default settings was measured at 0.38 seconds, which feels much longer with terminal overhead.

A recommended approach is to start with a minimal Zsh configuration, including settings for history size, extended history, automatic directory changes, and completion initialization. For prompt customization, a fast, single-binary tool like starship is suggested to replace older, plugin-heavy methods, allowing for easy configuration of elements like command duration and directory display, while disabling irrelevant cloud service indicators.

For history searching, interactive fuzzy searching using fzf bound to Ctrl+R is preferred over automatic suggestion plugins. Miscellaneous tips include enabling Vim mode for faster command editing. This minimal setup drastically reduces startup time to about 0.07 seconds. The conclusion is that users can adapt quickly to a simpler, faster workflow, manually adding features only if truly necessary.