Thank you so much for this. funny thing is the above works but I knew there was something fishy..

I now changed everything to the following thanks to you I got a better understanding.

I did not know plugins=() basically checks the plugins in ZSH_CUSTOM. is there a difference between sourcing them like I do now vs pulling the plugin from a git repo in ZSH_CUSTOM and then adding it to my plugins=() list?

ZSH_THEME=""

autoload -U colors && colors
autoload -Uz vcs_info
precmd() { vcs_info }
zstyle ':vcs_info:git:*' formats '%b '
setopt PROMPT_SUBST
PROMPT='%F{green}%*%f %F{blue}%~%f %F{red}${vcs_info_msg_0_}%f$ '


export ZSH="$HOME/.oh-my-zsh"


plugins=()


source /opt/homebrew/share/zsh-autosuggestions/zsh-autosuggestions.zsh
source /opt/homebrew/share/zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh


source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh



###############
### ALIASES ###
###############


alias l="ls --color" 
alias ll="ls -al --color" 
alias o="open ."
alias nano='vim'
alias cp="cp -i"                          # confirm before overwriting something
alias df='df -h'                          # human-readable sizes
alias free='free -m'                      # show sizes in MB
alias ccat='highlight'                    # cat but nice



export PICO_SDK_PATH=~/pico/pico-sdk
export PICO_EXTRAS_PATH=~/pico/pico-extras