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My Developer Setup in 2026

tools productivity

Every year I take stock of the tools I actually use day-to-day. Not the ones I tried for a week, but the ones that stuck. Here’s the current lineup.

Editor

VS Code remains my primary editor. I’ve tried alternatives, but the extension ecosystem and the integrated terminal keep pulling me back. Key extensions:

  • GitHub Copilot for inline completions
  • ESLint and Prettier for formatting
  • GitLens for blame annotations

Terminal

Warp replaced iTerm2 for me this year. The AI command suggestions are genuinely useful, and the block-based output makes it easier to parse long build logs.

My shell is zsh with a minimal prompt showing the current directory and git branch. I avoid heavy frameworks like oh-my-zsh in favor of a hand-rolled config.

Languages and Frameworks

The tools I reach for most often:

  • TypeScript for anything web-related
  • Python for data work and scripting
  • Astro for static sites (like this one)
  • Tailwind CSS for styling

Workflow

I keep it simple:

  1. Plan in markdown files
  2. Build in short iterations
  3. Commit frequently with conventional commits
  4. Deploy through CI/CD pipelines

The theme across all of this is reducing friction. Every tool I use should make the path from idea to shipped code shorter. Anything that adds ceremony without value gets dropped.