default user and recipient

[Robert J. Hansen]

> 1. Can I set default behavior to not have to specify a user ID?

Yes.  You may find the FAQ to be useful:

https://www.gnupg.org/faq/gnupg-faq.html#new_user_gpg_conf

> 2. What other flags should be used per best practices?

When using -e ("encrypt to"), you must also use -r ("recipient"), and -r
must come first.  You may also wish to use -s ("sign").  Personally, I
like to use the long form of the options, as I think it makes things
easier to read.  For instance, to encrypt a message for me you would type:

gpg --recipient 0xD6B98E10 --sign --encrypt filename.txt