Editor and local
- VS Code — still. I have tried everything. The extensions ecosystem wins.
- Claude Code — primary AI pair. Everything in this codebase was shipped with it open.
- macOS on an M-series MacBook. Homebrew, Warp for the terminal, tmux when I need sessions.
Web stack (the default pilot shape)
- Backend: Node.js + TypeScript + Postgres. Django where the admin panel is a load-bearing feature.
- Frontend: React + Next.js for product surfaces, Astro for marketing and content sites (this one is Astro).
- Mobile: Flutter when the spec demands one app across iOS + Android. Otherwise the mobile web is often enough.
- CMS: Sanity for content-heavy projects. Self-hosted Directus or Strapi where the client wants to own the DB.
Infra
- Hosting: Cloudflare Pages for static fronts. Railway or Fly for Node backends. AWS when compliance forces the hand.
- DB: Neon or Supabase Postgres for pilots. RDS when the retainer kicks in.
- Mail: Resend for transactional. HubSpot for lifecycle.
- Observability: Sentry + BetterStack. Uptime monitors on every module that bills the client.
AI and automation
- Claude Max — content, code review, and the research layer in this Marketing repo.
- Claude Code CLI — actual implementation work.
- n8n (self-hosted) — workflow automation the client will own after the engagement ends.
Writing and thinking
- Obsidian — everything I publish starts as a note here.
- Raycast — launcher, clipboard, snippets.
- Paper notebook for actual thinking. No app fixes not-thinking.
Last edited April 21, 2026. This page is opinionated. It is not a list of tools I recommend to you. It is the list that lets me ship in 30 days.