Ask HN: How do you sync apps and settings across multiple machines

What do you use to sync apps/settings etc across multiple devices (Mac and/or Linux)? When I was using linux I used Stow [1] to manage my dotfiles and configs.

When I moved to Mac, I started maintaining a Brewfile under my dotfiles repository [2], with a combinations of homebrew [3], homebrew-bundle [4], mas [5] and whalebrew [6] that installs all the apps (cli, native apps, docker images, app store etc)

I still have to install homebrew in the beginning and login to iCloud but this setup works. I still have to setup each app individually.

I also tried Ansible and @geerlingguy fantastic Mac setup Ansible playbook [6], but I was not able to automate the process as I needed to have python3 and ansible setup correctly in my system first.

I would like to know what workflow do other hackers use to quickly setup new machines and make them productive right away.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/ [2] https://github.com/anubhavcodes/dotfiles/blob/master/Brewfile [3] https://github.com/Homebrew/brew [4] https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-bundle [5] https://github.com/mas-cli/mas [6] https://github.com/geerlingguy/mac-dev-playbook