What I Use

32GB RAM, 1TB SSD. The M5 Pro's performance/watt for Webpack, TS compilation, and local MongoDB is absurd.

ANC for deep focus sessions. The multipoint Bluetooth between MBP and phone eliminates context switching.

1️⃣ Active Noise Cancellation helps block distractions so you can focus deeply while coding. 2️⃣ Seamless Apple ecosystem integration — instantly switch between Mac, iPhone, and iPad during work. 3️⃣ High comfort + great mic quality for long coding sessions and clear meetings.

1️⃣ Noise cancellation helps you focus while coding. 2️⃣ Seamless Apple ecosystem (Mac, iPhone, iPad switching). 3️⃣ Compact + comfortable for long work sessions and meetings.

Primary editor. Extensions: ESLint, Prettier, GitLens, Error Lens, Pretty TypeScript Errors, Tailwind CSS IntelliSense.

High contrast without being harsh. The italics variant renders JSX/TSX remarkably well.

13px, 1.5 line height. Ligatures on. Clear glyph shapes reduce eye strain in long sessions.

Modal editing for navigation-heavy refactors. Not for everyone — took ~3 months to feel natural.

Block-based output, AI command suggestions, and collaborative sessions. Fastest terminal I've used.

Plugins: git, z (autojump), zsh-autosuggestions, zsh-syntax-highlighting. Custom prompt with git state.

Session persistence and pane management. Essential for keeping dev server + shell + logs visible simultaneously.

Drop-in replacements for cat, ls, grep, find. Dramatically faster and nicer output.

Launcher, clipboard manager, window manager, and snippets. Replaced Alfred + Spectacle + a dozen other tools.

MongoDB + PostgreSQL GUI. The SSH tunnel support is essential for prod database inspections.

HTTP/S proxy for inspecting network traffic. Essential for debugging API integrations and third-party SDKs.

Design reviews and component spec inspection. Dev Mode is genuinely useful for extracting exact spacing/tokens.

Article drafts, research notes, RFC documents, and interview prep.

Task and sprint tracking. Clean, fast, and the keyboard-first design matches how I work.

Default choice for new projects. Server components + streaming + ISR covers most production requirements.

No exceptions. strict: true, noUncheckedIndexedAccess: true. The extra setup cost pays off in the first refactor.

Utility-first CSS. Eliminates dead code by default. JIT mode + arbitrary values cover 99% of edge cases.

Fast ESM-native testing. Co-located test files. MSW for API mocking without implementation coupling.

Monorepo task orchestration. Incremental builds with remote caching cut CI times significantly on large repos.

Flexible schema iteration during rapid development. Atlas search and vector search cover most query requirements.

Reading the Fiber reconciler, scheduler, and concurrent features directly. grep + VSCode is the best documentation.

Hidden classes, turbofan, sparkplug, maglev. Primary source for understanding JS engine internals.

Flame charts, long tasks, layout shifts. The "Enable advanced paint instrumentation" option reveals compositor internals.

Flame graphs for profiling Node.js and general systems work. The off-CPU analysis methodology is applicable everywhere.

Distributed systems, garbage collection, type theory. CS fundamentals surface in engineering decisions more than most expect.