Where to place PATH variable assertions in zsh

Question

I love zsh  but I am not sure where to place my  PATH and other variable assertions  I find that they are scattered between the files  zshrc  zprofile  bashrc  bash profile  and sometimes doubled   I realize that having anything inside the bash files doesn t make much sense seeing as I m using zsh  but where exactly should I be placing my rvm  python  node etc additions to my  PATH    Is there a specific file I should be using  i e   zshenv which does not currently exist in my installation   one of the ones I am currently using  or does it even matter

User · Answer

Here is the docs from the zsh man pages under STARTUP/SHUTDOWN FILES section.

   Commands  are  first  read from /etc/zshenv this cannot be overridden.
   Subsequent behaviour is modified by the RCS and GLOBAL_RCS options; the
   former  affects all startup files, while the second only affects global
   startup files (those shown here with an path starting with  a  /).   If
   one  of  the  options  is  unset  at  any point, any subsequent startup
   file(s) of the corresponding type will not be read.  It is also  possi-
   ble  for  a  file  in  $ZDOTDIR  to  re-enable GLOBAL_RCS. Both RCS and
   GLOBAL_RCS are set by default.

   Commands are then read from $ZDOTDIR/.zshenv.  If the shell is a  login
   shell,  commands  are  read from /etc/zprofile and then $ZDOTDIR/.zpro-
   file.  Then, if the  shell  is  interactive,  commands  are  read  from
   /etc/zshrc  and then $ZDOTDIR/.zshrc.  Finally, if the shell is a login
   shell, /etc/zlogin and $ZDOTDIR/.zlogin are read.

From this we can see the order files are read is:

/etc/zshenv    # Read for every shell
~/.zshenv      # Read for every shell except ones started with -f
/etc/zprofile  # Global config for login shells, read before zshrc
~/.zprofile    # User config for login shells
/etc/zshrc     # Global config for interactive shells
~/.zshrc       # User config for interactive shells
/etc/zlogin    # Global config for login shells, read after zshrc
~/.zlogin      # User config for login shells
~/.zlogout     # User config for login shells, read upon logout
/etc/zlogout   # Global config for login shells, read after user logout file

You can get more information here.

User · Answer

tl dr version  use    zshrc  And read the man page to understand the differences between          zshrc     zshenv and    zprofile       Regarding my comment  In my comment attached to the answer kev gave  I said      This seems to be incorrect -  etc profile isn t listed in any zsh documentation I can find    This turns out to be partially incorrect   etc profile may be sourced by zsh  However  this only occurs if zsh is  invoked as sh or ksh   in these compatibility modes      The usual zsh startup shutdown scripts are not executed  Login shells source  etc profile followed by  HOME  profile  If the ENV environment variable is set on invocation   ENV is sourced after the profile scripts  The value of ENV is subjected to parameter expansion  command substitution  and arithmetic expansion before being interpreted as a pathname   man zshall   Compatibility       The ArchWiki ZSH link says      At login  Zsh sources the following files in this order     etc profile   This file is sourced by all Bourne-compatible shells upon login   This implys that  etc profile is always read by zsh at login - I haven t got any experience with the Arch Linux project  the wiki may be correct for that distribution  but it is not generally correct  The information is incorrect compared to the zsh manual pages  and doesn t seem to apply to zsh on OS X  paths in  PATH set in  etc profile do not make it to my zsh sessions         To address the question      where exactly should I be placing my rvm  python  node etc additions to my  PATH    Generally  I would export my  PATH from    zshrc  but it s worth having a read of the zshall man page  specifically the  STARTUP SHUTDOWN FILES  section -    zshrc is read for interactive shells  which may or may not suit your needs - if you want the  PATH for every zsh shell invoked by you  both interactive and not  both login and not  etc   then    zshenv is a better option       Is there a specific file I should be using  i e   zshenv which does not currently exist in my installation   one of the ones I am currently using  or does it even matter    There s a bunch of files read on startup  check the linked man pages   and there s a reason for that - each file has it s particular place  settings for every user  settings for user-specific  settings for login shells  settings for every shell  etc   Don t worry about    zshenv not existing - if you need it  make it  and it will be read    bashrc and  bash profile are not read by zsh  unless you explicitly source them from    zshrc or similar  the syntax between bash and zsh is not always compatible  Both  bashrc and  bash profile are designed for bash settings  not zsh settings

User · Answer

I had similar problem  in bash terminal command was working correctly but zsh showed command not found error    Solution    just paste whatever you were earlier pasting in    bashrc to      zshrc

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