Zed
While I used to love the power of Neovim, Iāve found my new home in Zed. It is a blazingly fast, modern code editor that feels like the perfect hybrid of Neovimās speed and VSCodeās simplicity. It has all the essentials built-ināLSP for smart code completion, a fast integrated terminal, and even Vim keybindings if you wanted. It is minimalistic and efficient which is exactly what I want. As someone who lives in the terminal for DevOps, Zedās performance is a massive boost.
Obsidian
This is, without a doubt, my single most important tool. Iāve moved my entire life from Notion to Obsidian, and it has been a game changer. It is my āsecond brainā, a Markdown-based knowledge base that is incredibly fast, private, and doesnāt lock me into an online service. I use it to manage my entire P.A.R.A. system; my 02_Areas act as dashboards for DevOps and personal life, while my 01_Projects track active work like these blog and project posts.
TUI (LazyGit, LazyDocker & k9s)
Terminal-based user interfaces (TUIs) have completely transformed how I work. LazyGit makes complex git operations feel intuitive, and LazyDocker lets me visualise my containers without needing a heavy desktop app. Recently, I added k9s to the mix for Kubernetes. It allows me to navigate my clusters, kill pods, and view logs instantly with just a few keystrokes. These tools are incredibly efficient and save me a huge amount of time compared to typing out raw CLI commands for everything.
Ghostty
I recently swapped out my terminal for Ghostty, and it is fantastic. It is a GPU-accelerated terminal that works on both Linux and macOS, written in Zig. It feels native and fast right out of the box without needing hours of configuration. While I used to rely on Kitty, Ghostty gives me that same speed but with a more polished, āinstall-and-forgetā vibe. It handles tabs and splits perfectly, and honestly, it just looks cleaner on my screen.
OrbStack (macOS)
When I am working on my Mac, Docker Desktop used to be the bane of my existence. It was heavy, slow, and drained my battery. I switched to OrbStack, and the difference is night and day. It is a lightweight container engine that starts up in two seconds and uses a fraction of the RAM. It feels like a native Mac app rather than a clunky virtual machine. If you are doing any container work on macOS, this is the single best upgrade you can make.
Brave
Iāve made the switch to Brave as my main browser for development. It is fast because it blocks trackers and ads by default, which is great for minimising distractions when Iām trying to focus. Since it is built on Chromium, I still get the world-class DevTools I need for web tasks. It strikes the perfect balance between speed, privacy, and having the right developer features ready to go.