senv: a portable, no-admin development environment for Windows

senv ("session environment") turns a plain CMD session into a fully equipped development shell on a locked-down Windows laptop:

• no admin rights needed,
• no installer run on the machine (tools are only downloaded and uncompressed, the single exception is VSCode, installed per-user),
• nothing outside the session is modified: close the terminal and the laptop is exactly as before.

Open a terminal, type senv, and inside that session "everything works": Git, Java, Node, Python, Maven, your editors, your aliases, your proxy. Outside the session, nothing is affected.

The initial focus is contractors working in a locked corporate environment, but it fits anyone who wants a reproducible, self-contained Windows setup.

📦 How it works

A senv session is built from scratch each time, instead of relying on the laptop system and user environments:

• 🖥️ a minimal PATH: reset to the bare Windows folders, then extended only with what senv provides (%HOME%\bin first, then a portable Git, which also brings grep, awk, sed, curl and bash),
• 🧰 a set of portable applications installed under %PRGS%,
• 🏷️ a set of environment variables (locale, editor, proxy, tool homes),
• ⚡ a set of aliases (doskey macros) for navigation, Git, tools and updates,
• 🏠 a dedicated senv user HOME (by default %USERPROFILE%\home_senv), which is its own Git repository and can be backed up to a remote location.

🧰 Program layout: %PRGS%\<tool>s\<version|current>

Every tool family lives in one folder named after the tool plus a trailing s, one subfolder per version, and a junction pointing at the active one:

%PRGS%\javas\jdk21
%PRGS%\nodes\node22
%PRGS%\gits\current
%PRGS%\vscodes\current

A tool already installed elsewhere (for example by a corporate installer) is still referenced through the same convention, using a junction folder to the external location. Every script can therefore rely on one single path shape. This contract is re-checked and repaired on every setup run: a junction is re-targeted when the active version changes, and a real folder found in a junction's place (a previous manual installation) is kept aside as current.old (explanation).

🏷️ Configuration layers

Settings and aliases are loaded in four layers, each one able to override the previous:

1. senv (this public repository): the engine and the global aliases.
2. custom (a private, nested repository in custom\, gitignored here): team-shared and possibly corporate-sensitive settings: proxy, network shares, certificates. See custom_example/README.md.
3. profile (senv.custom.<profile>.* in the custom repository): the application list, variables and aliases shared by one team.
4. local (senv.local.* in %HOME%\bin): your personal settings. These files are created once and never overwritten, so a senv update does not touch your customizations.

🧰 On-demand tools and versions

• dwl <tool> [version] downloads a portable archive from a curated list (bin/prgs.list, about 50 applications and languages).
• inst_prg <tool> (alias inst) uncompresses it under %PRGS% and wires the junction. div <tool> [version] does both in one step.
• switchjdk, switchmvn, switchnode, switchpy, switchwf (all built on the generic switchver) add one specific tool version to the PATH of the current session only. The global PATH is never modified permanently.

🖥️ Per-project senv

senv first looks for a senv.bat in the current directory. A project can therefore ship its own senv.bat that calls the global one and then, for example, runs switchjdk 17 and switchnode 20: opening a session in that project gives the exact tool versions the project needs, found at their conventional %PRGS% locations. senv all runs the global activation first and the project one on top, handy for a Windows Terminal tab per project (how-to).

🚀 Quick start

1. Clone this repository (with its batcolors submodule) into <PRGS>\senv, for example C:\Public\SOFTWARE\senv:

   git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/VonC/setupsenv senv

2. Run getstarted.bat. Unattended, it:

   • creates your private custom\ nested repository from custom_example\ and makes it a local Git repository,
   • registers a first profile, named perso by default,
   • downloads a minimal tool set, 7-Zip (peazip), Git, gum, Notepad++, Sysinternals, VSCode, with the curl shipped in Windows,
   • runs setup.bat: tools uncompressed under %PRGS%, dedicated senv HOME created, %USERPROFILE%\senv.bat generated.

3. In any new CMD session, type senv. You are good to go.

getstarted.bat [profile] ["Full Name"] [email] accepts overrides, and you can set PRGS, HOME, PROG (or HTTPS_PROXY for the downloads) beforehand to force locations. The guided, step-by-step version of the same install is the first tutorial.

✨ After the first run

• ⚡ Customize your session: type senve to edit your personal variables (senv.local.bat, reload with senv), or aliase to edit your personal aliases (senv.local.doskey, reload with aliasr); both files survive every senv update (how-to).
• 🧰 Add tools on demand: div node, or dwl jdk 21 then inst jdk, then switchjdk/switchnode inside a session (tutorial).
• 📦 More profiles when you need them: one per computer for yourself, or one per team you equip: each profile is an install_<profile>.list plus senv.custom.<profile>.* files in custom\, and can be distributed from a team share (how-to, explanation).

🖥️ Everyday commands

A few of the commands available inside a session; the complete list is (or will be) in the wiki reference pages:

Command	Role
senv	activate the session (minimal PATH, variables, aliases)
s	re-run setup unattended (refresh tools and configuration)
dwl, inst, div	download / uncompress / both, for one tool
switchjdk, switchnode, ...	put one tool version on the session PATH
up, upg, upa	update the environment from the team share
alias [pattern]	list the doskey aliases, filtered by name or content (alias cd)
tc <today|yesterday|yyyy-MM-dd>	copy locally cached Teams chats for a day to the clipboard (tct/tcy are today/yesterday shortcuts)
ctc	collect Teams Ctrl+A/Ctrl+C selections into %HOME%\a.tc.copy; paste the cleaned transcript and stop with Ctrl+V
ctcr	reset %HOME%\a.tc.copy, then immediately start a new collection
cdg, cds, cdh, ...	jump to the key folders; cdg is where you clone (%PROG%\git)
gcu	register your name/email in the current repository (see below)
senve	edit your personal variables in VSCode; reload with senv
aliase	edit your personal aliases in VSCode; reload with aliasr
ppath	print and check the PATH, entry by entry
ti, ei	test / restore internet access (proxy restart)

The Teams cache reader executable is generated from tools\team-chat on the first extraction, rebuilt when its Go sources change, and deployed to %HOME%\bin; generated executables are not versioned.

ctc uses the newest Python 3.13.x under %PRGS%\pythons and needs no extra packages. It keeps appending when %HOME%\a.tc.copy was modified today, starts it empty on a new day, removes Teams' timestamped preview duplicates, and replaces the clipboard with the complete accumulated transcript after every copy. The first Ctrl+V pastes that transcript and stops the collector.

🪪 Git identity, per repository

senv sets no global Git email: with user.useConfigOnly=true, a commit is refused until the repository has its own identity. Clone under cdg (%PROG%\git), run gcu once in the clone, done: a professional email can no longer slip into a public repository by accident. Details in the git configuration reference and the reasoning.

🗂️ Repository layout

getstarted.bat       unattended onboarding for a new user
setup.bat            installer/bootstrapper (s.bat = unattended re-run)
bin\                 session scripts, copied to %HOME%\bin (senv.bat, dwl.bat,
                     inst_prg.bat, switch*.bat, prgs.list, senv.doskey, ...)
installs\            per-tool install hooks (*.pre|install|post|sln|alias.bat)
adm\                 maintainer tooling: build and publish profile archives
adm\custom\          generic distribution scripts (remote_setup.bat, ss.bat,
                     senv_update.bat, ...) that a custom repository may override
custom_example\      template to bootstrap your private custom repository
setups_example\      template for a local archive folder
docs\                working notes for maintainers (dwl.md, inst.md)
wiki\                documentation, one subfolder per Diátaxis category
batcolors\           submodule: colored output for batch scripts
custom\              your private repository (gitignored, created at setup)

🤝 Teams and distribution

A team administrator defines a profile in the private custom repository (application list, variables, aliases, network share), then builds a self-extracting archive with adm\build.bat <profile> and publishes it to the team share. Team members bootstrap or update their whole environment from that share, still without admin rights. Details in custom_example/README.md.

📚 Documentation

This README is only the front door: it says what senv is and where to go next. The rest of the documentation lives in the wiki/ folder, organized on the Diátaxis model, which separates four kinds of pages so that none of them gets mixed with the others:

• 🎓 Tutorials: learning by doing: first installation, first session, first project-specific senv.
• 🧭 How-to guides: recipes for a precise goal, add a program to prgs.list, create a team profile, publish an update.
• 📖 Reference: exact descriptions, commands and their arguments, file naming conventions, environment variables, alias list.
• 💡 Explanation: background and reasoning, why a minimal PATH, why a dedicated HOME, how the configuration layers fit together.

docs/dwl.md and docs/inst.md remain the maintainers' working notes on the download and install workflows.