I have this reminder in every `~/.z*` file:

  # Load Order    Interactive  Interactive  Script
  # Startup       Only login   Always
  # ------------- -----------  -----------  ------
  #  /etc/zshenv       1            1         1
  #    ~/.zshenv       2            2         2
  # /etc/zprofile      3
  #   ~/.zprofile      4
  # /etc/zshrc         5            3
  #   ~/.zshrc         6            4
  # /etc/zlogin        7
  #   ~/.zlogin        8
  #
  # Shutdown
  # ------------- -----------  -----------  ------
  #   ~/.zlogout       9
  # /etc/zlogout      10
  #
  # Note: ZSH seems to read ~/.profile as well, if ~/.zshrc is not present.

> ~/.zshenv

Technically it's $ZDOTDIR/…

Also note from the official documentation:

> `.zprofile' is meant as an alternative to `.zlogin' for ksh fans; the two are not intended to be used together

I tend to use:

  alias reload="exec -l $SHELL"

Which I copied from somewhere, I don't know how specific it is but maybe it helps someone :)

Using $SHELL is not great because it is not a reliable env var. It's only set for login shells, and if your login shell isn't zsh you'll get a different shell on this "reload". (A long time ago I had an account somewhere where my sysadmin didn't respond to chsh request for whatever reason, so my login shell remained /bin/bash while I actually used zsh day to day.) It can also be anything, really:

  export SHELL=/sbin/nologin  # or /usr/sbin/nologin, or equivalent on your system
  exec -l $SHELL

You want zsh, so just use zsh.

As for -l, exec zsh -l and exec -l zsh both replace the current shell with a login zsh, so they are effectively the same.

Good point. Separation of different config aspects is in the pipe as dedicated article