Custom macOS Dock for the Lab Image

Pin Chrome, Google Drive, and the Adobe apps this course needs into every student’s Dock the first time they log in, using bluemoosegoose/Build-a-Custom-MacOS-Dock, a small script-based tool deployed through Jamf Pro.

On this page
  1. How it works
  2. Step 1: Edit BuildtheDock.sh
  3. Step 2: Package and deploy through Jamf
  4. Re-running after an update
  5. Verifying an install
  6. Source

This tool is a third-party GitHub project, not something Apple, Google, Adobe, or Jamf ships or supports. It’s a plain shell script plus a LaunchAgent, verified by its author on macOS Sonoma and back-compatible to Catalina. Read it before you deploy it — it’s short.

How it works

Three packages, all pushed through Jamf Pro (the same MDM already used to deploy the BrainBuffet Premiere assets — see the GMetrix accountability notes in _planning/2026-27-scope-and-sequence.md — so no new deployment channel to set up):

Package What it does
dockutil binary A command-line tool (from its own GitHub releases, separate from this repo) that adds, removes, and reorders Dock items. Installs to /usr/local/bin/dockutil.
BuildtheDockScript.pkg Installs BuildtheDock.sh to /Library/Scripts/. This is the one file you actually edit.
buildadockagent.pkg Installs a LaunchAgent (/Library/LaunchAgents/com.matt.buildadock.plist) that runs the script at every login.

The dock builds once per user, then leaves it alone. The script’s first real action is to check for a marker file, ~/dockscrap.txt. If that file exists, the script exits immediately and touches nothing — so a student who’s rearranged their own Dock never gets it silently reset on a later login. If the marker is missing, the script wipes the Dock (dockutil --remove all) and rebuilds it from a fixed list of items, then creates the marker so it won’t run again.

That means: to push an updated default (say, a new Adobe app this year), you have to delete dockscrap.txt and re-trigger the LaunchAgent — see Re-running after an update below — not just edit the script and wait.

Step 1: Edit BuildtheDock.sh

The stock script (from the repo’s BuildtheDock.sh) builds the Dock like this, one dockutil call per item, in the order they should appear:

#Clear the Dock
echo Removing all Dock Items
$DOCKUTIL_BINARY --remove all --no-restart

#sleep for 2 seconds
$sleep 2

#Build the Dock
$DOCKUTIL_BINARY --add '/System/Applications/Launchpad.app' --allhomes --no-restart
$DOCKUTIL_BINARY --add '/System/Applications/System Settings.app' --allhomes --no-restart
$DOCKUTIL_BINARY --add '/Applications/Self Service.app' --allhomes --no-restart
$DOCKUTIL_BINARY --add '/System/Cryptexes/App/System/Applications/Safari.app' --allhomes --no-restart
$DOCKUTIL_BINARY --add '/Applications/Firefox.app' --allhomes --no-restart
$DOCKUTIL_BINARY --add '/Applications/Google Chrome.app' --allhomes --no-restart
$DOCKUTIL_BINARY --add '/Library/Application Support/Dock Icons/Office 365.webloc' --label 'Office 365' --no-restart
$DOCKUTIL_BINARY --add '~/Downloads' --view fan --display stack
echo Added Downloads-Fan View-Stack Display

Chrome is already in the stock list (/Applications/Google Chrome.app) — nothing to add there. Drop or keep Self Service.app, Firefox.app, and the Office 365.webloc line depending on what’s actually relevant to this lab; they’re the original author’s defaults, not required by the tool itself.

To add Google Drive and the Adobe apps, insert one --add line per app, right after the Chrome line and before the ~/Downloads stack:

$DOCKUTIL_BINARY --add '/Applications/Google Chrome.app' --allhomes --no-restart
$DOCKUTIL_BINARY --add '/Applications/Google Drive.app' --allhomes --no-restart
$DOCKUTIL_BINARY --add '/Applications/Adobe Illustrator 2025/Adobe Illustrator.app' --allhomes --no-restart
$DOCKUTIL_BINARY --add '/Applications/Adobe Premiere Pro 2025/Adobe Premiere Pro 2025.app' --allhomes --no-restart
$DOCKUTIL_BINARY --add '/Applications/Adobe Photoshop 2025/Adobe Photoshop 2025.app' --allhomes --no-restart
$DOCKUTIL_BINARY --add '~/Downloads' --view fan --display stack

Only add a line for whichever Adobe app(s) this specific lab image actually has installed — a Premiere-only Mac lab doesn’t need the Illustrator or Photoshop lines, and vice versa. Items appear in the Dock in the exact order you --add them, so put the app each course actually uses first if you want it closest to the Applications side.

Confirm the exact path on a real test Mac before you trust it. Adobe’s folder name changes with the release line (Adobe Illustrator 2025 this year, a different year next year), and the Google Drive client has been renamed by Google before. Don’t guess from this page — on a Mac that already has the app installed, either right-click the app in Applications → Get Info and read the path, or drag the app icon onto an open Terminal window; Terminal prints its full path. Use that exact string.

Step 2: Package and deploy through Jamf

  1. Build/import the three packages (dockutil, BuildtheDockScript.pkg with your edited script inside, buildadockagent.pkg) as Jamf Pro packages, same as any other software deployment.
  2. Scope them to the lab’s Smart Group or the specific machines, same as the BrainBuffet asset packages already pushed to the ADD Mac lab.
  3. If any app you’re adding is itself a web shortcut rather than an installed application (the repo’s example is an Office 365 .webloc), the process is: create the .webloc file on a test Mac (drag a URL from the browser’s address bar to the desktop, or use File → Save As Webloc where the browser supports it), package it with Jamf Composer into /Library/Application Support/Dock Icons/, then reference that path with a --label flag, exactly like the Office 365 line above.

Re-running after an update

Because the script only fires once per user (per the dockscrap.txt check), editing and re-pushing BuildtheDock.sh alone does nothing for a Mac that’s already built its Dock. The repo ships two small helper scripts for this:

Script What it does
A_Delete Dockscrap.sh Deletes ~/dockscrap.txt for whoever’s currently logged in, clearing the “already built” marker.
BuildtheDock_ReLoad LaunchAgent.sh Unloads and reloads the LaunchAgent, forcing BuildtheDock.sh to run again immediately.

To push an updated default Dock (a new Adobe app, a dropped item) to Macs that already have one built: run A_Delete Dockscrap.sh first, then BuildtheDock_ReLoad LaunchAgent.sh, both as a Jamf policy (or sudo locally on one machine while testing). Running the reload script without first deleting the marker just reloads the LaunchAgent — the script still sees dockscrap.txt and exits without changing anything.

Deleting dockscrap.txt throws away that student’s own Dock customizations along with the old default — the rebuild is a full wipe (dockutil --remove all), not a merge. Only push a re-build when you actually intend to reset the Dock, e.g. lab re-image day or the start of a new school year, not as a casual fix.

Verifying an install

  • dockutil present at /usr/local/bin/dockutil
  • BuildtheDock.sh present at /Library/Scripts/
  • LaunchAgent plist present at /Library/LaunchAgents/com.matt.buildadock.plist
  • A log of the last build at /Users/<username>/docklog.txt — the script redirects all its own output there, so this is the first place to check if a Dock didn’t build as expected.

Source

bluemoosegoose/Build-a-Custom-MacOS-Dock on GitHub. Commands and file names on this page are taken directly from that repo’s BuildtheDock.sh, A_Delete Dockscrap.sh, and BuildtheDock_ReLoad LaunchAgent.sh as of September 2026 — check the repo itself if something here stops matching what you see.

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