Tanguy Ortolo

Both Bash and Zsh use several startup scripts: profile, bashrc, zlogin, zshrc, etc.

The existence of several startup scripts exists to allow you to apply specific actions for interactive or login shells. For instance, you may want to set up a fancy colour prompt or to enable a powerful completion system for interactive shells only, as it would be pointless to apply it to non-interactive shells (that is, for shell scripts). Or you may want to display a joke and the weather forecast at login, but not each time you spawn a shell by other means.

Read more Startup scripts of Bash and Zsh