#+title: Emacs Early Initialization

Disable =package.el= at startup so that =elpaca= can enable it on its own.
#+begin_src emacs-lisp
  (setq package-enable-at-startup nil)
#+end_src

Force the use of a =custom.el= file instead of appending to =init.el=.
#+begin_src emacs-lisp
  (setq custom-file (concat user-emacs-directory "custom.el"))
  (when (file-exists-p custom-file)
    (load custom-file))
#+end_src

Disable the default startup screen so Emacs starts in the =scratch= buffer and also defaults to an empty =scratch= buffer.
#+begin_src emacs-lisp
  (setq inhibit-startup-screen t
        initial-scratch-message nil)
#+end_src

Clean up interface by removing unnecessary elements.
#+begin_src emacs-lisp
  (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(vertical-scroll-bars . nil)) ; saves about 0.02 seconds on startup over `(scroll-bar-mode -1)`
  (push '(tool-bar-lines . 0) default-frame-alist) ; saves about 0.1 seconds on startup over `(tool-bar-mode -1)`
  (menu-bar-mode -1)
  (setq frame-resize-pixelwise t)
#+end_src