Tools Stack

Very intent on customization and smooth workflows. Will spend unreasonable amounts of time grudging over the littlest details until everything feels right.

Menu Bar

The menu bar is curated, not default. Every icon earns its spot.

• Ice — menu bar manager, hides the clutter
• Backtrack — ambient audio recorder, rewind what you just heard
• Stats — RAM and network monitoring at a glance
• Bleed — menu bar audio visualizer
• f.lux — night shift done right, warm screen at night
• Amphetamine — keep-awake toggle (renamed from Caffeine)
• Time Machine — backup status indicator
• CleanShot X — screenshot and screen recording, replaces native screenshot entirely

Terminal

iTerm2 + tmux. The terminal is the primary workspace, not the editor.

tmux

Prefix rebound to C-q. Mouse on. Pane splits on v/h. Vim-style navigation with C-hjkl.

Plugins:

• tmux-resurrect — save and restore sessions across reboots (M-s/M-r)
• tmux-continuum — auto-save every 15 minutes, auto-restore on start
• tmux-assistant-resurrect — custom resurrect for yazi process restoration
• tmuxinator — declarative session layouts (mux dev2 spins up the whole dev environment)

Shell (zsh)

Alias and function city. .zshrc and .zshenv are heavily customized.

Navigation:

• yazi — terminal file manager, aliased as y, with cd-on-exit and iTerm drop proxy
• fzf — fuzzy finder for everything (history, files, directories)
• zoxide — smart cd replacement, cd is aliased to z
• eza — modern ls with git integration, tree view, relative timestamps

Shortcuts:

• cl → clear, mk → touch, mkd → mkdir, rmd → rm -rf
• ga/gc/gp → git add/commit/push
• gg → git_go: add all, commit, push in one shot
• tq → quick-add a task, pj → scaffold a new project in ~/code/
• p → python3, act → activate venv
• claude / codex / gemini — all aliased to skip permissions/approvals

Editor: micro (set as micro and micro)

Keyboard

Karabiner-Elements

Three profiles: Default, Colemak, and QWERTY — switchable via hotkeys (M-O Tab / M-C Tab).

Key remaps include:

• C-p/C-n → up/down arrows everywhere
• C-O-p/C-O-n → page up/page down
• C-O-b/C-O-f → word-level movement
• App-specific overrides (Firefox, Finder, Discord)
• M-O-C-S a → toggle keyboard sounds
• Custom movement variable toggle with `M+S+C+``

Homerow & Vimium

Keyboard-driven navigation everywhere. Homerow for native macOS apps, Vimium for the browser. The goal: never touch the trackpad.

Physical setup: external keyboard + laptop stand.

Editors

Previously went through the full IDE war: VS Code, Zed, Windsurf, Cursor. Currently settled on VS Code with the Claude Code extension — the AI integration won.

Browsers

Pored over every option: Arc, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Dia. Currently on Chrome.

Browser extensions are a whole thing. Cursorful gets a special mention (for frustration, not praise).

Voice

Voice modes — using speech input workflows for dictation and control.

• Whispering — local speech-to-text
• Voice Memos for capture

Notes & Knowledge

• Obsidian — local-first markdown knowledge base, primary thinking tool
• Ideaflow — idea capture and connection
• Apple Notes — quick capture
• Google Docs — collaboration

Infrastructure

• AWS Lightsail — VPS hosting
• PostgreSQL — primary database
• Cloudflare — DNS, SSL, CDN
• nginx — reverse proxy
• gunicorn — WSGI server
• systemd — process management

AI

• Claude / Claude Code — primary LLM and coding agent
• Codex — OpenAI's coding agent
• Gemini — Google's LLM
• ChatGPT — desktop app installed
• WikiHub — LLM-native wiki platform (this project)
• MCP — Model Context Protocol integrations

Other Apps

Currently running: Spotify, Zoom, Messages, Granola, TextEdit, Google Chrome, Obsidian, iTerm2, 1Password, Karabiner, Tailscale.

Also installed: Raycast, Alfred, OrbStack, Discord, Slack, Notion, Maccy (clipboard manager), DaisyDisk, Numi (calculator), OBS, IINA (video player), Rectangle (window management).

Package management: Homebrew for everything — both cask and formula.

Recommendations from friends

Tools suggested by people in the network. Organized by category so they land in context.

Terminal — from Jacob

• Cmux (GitHub) — Native macOS terminal built on Ghostty's GPU-accelerated renderer, designed for running multiple AI coding agents in parallel. Where iTerm2 + tmux is a general-purpose terminal setup, Cmux is purpose-built for the agent workflow: notification rings when an agent needs attention, vertical tabs showing git branch + PR status + listening ports, an embedded scriptable browser (ported from Vercel's agent-browser), and SSH workspaces where localhost URLs just work. 13.5k stars. By Manaflow AI (YC S24).