My Developer Workflow Setup in 2026

OK so when you first open a terminal, it’s like getting a brand new coloring book with zero crayons. Technically you have the book, but good luck doing anything fun with it. Oh My Zsh is the big box of crayons. It adds colors, shortcuts, and little helpers that make the terminal feel like somewhere a human would actually want to hang out.

The best crayon in the box is zsh-autosuggestions. You start typing and it goes “oh, you probably want THIS command you used yesterday” and shows it in gray. Press the right arrow and boom, done. My terminal now finishes my sentences better than my friends do. More terminal tricks in my terminal productivity post.

The prompt is the little text that shows up before you type in the terminal. Think of it like the name tag on your LEGO bin. You can make it show what folder you’re in, what git branch you’re on, all sorts of stuff. I went through three custom setups before realizing I was spending more time decorating the name tag than actually playing with the LEGOs. Starship looks nice, installs in two seconds, and doesn’t require a PhD in configuration. I finally stopped messing with it, which might be the biggest productivity gain of all.

The terminal emulator is the actual window where you type commands. Think of it like the table you build LEGOs on. Ghostty is one that’s always ready and doesn’t take up half the room. Some terminals try to be everything at once, like a table that’s also a fridge and also a TV. Ghostty just wants to be a really good table. I respect that focus, mostly because I lack it myself.

A code editor is where you write your code. Imagine a coloring book, but instead of coloring in pictures, you’re writing instructions for the computer. Cursor is like having a friend sitting next to you who can see your coloring book and goes “hey, I think you meant to use the blue crayon here, not the red one.” Sometimes the friend is wrong, but most of the time it saves me a ton of work. More on Cursor in my AI tools comparison.

Neovim is a tiny editor that lives inside your terminal. No big app, no loading screen. I use it for quick fixes and on faraway computers where installing a full editor would be like bringing a bouncy castle to a picnic. LazyVim is a pre-made setup so Neovim comes with useful stuff already working. Without it, setting up Neovim is less “tool” and more “lifestyle.”

OK so imagine you have a bunch of different coloring books. One needs the 8-pack of crayons, another needs the 64-pack, and a third one needs colored pencils. Normally you’d get a separate crayon organizer for each book, and before you know it your desk looks like an art supply store exploded. Mise is one organizer that handles all of them. One box. I used to have four different version managers fighting in my shell profile. Now I have one. My computer is much less mad at me.

Docker puts your apps in little boxes (containers) so they can’t mess with each other or your computer. Like giving each toy its own toy box so the LEGOs don’t end up mixed with the Play-Doh. Docker Desktop is the standard app for this on Mac, but it sits in the background eating your computer’s memory like a kid who found the snack cabinet unsupervised. OrbStack does the same job while barely nibbling. My laptop fan stopped sounding like a jet engine. That alone was worth the switch.

A database is where your app keeps all its stuff. Imagine a giant toy chest where every toy has a label on it. Looking inside normally means typing special commands, which is like trying to find your favorite toy by shouting into the chest and hoping it answers. TablePlus lets you see everything in a nice table, like lining up all your toys on the floor so you can actually see them. I’ve tried the other tools and they all felt like homework. TablePlus is the only one that doesn’t make me want to close my laptop.

On Mac, Cmd+Space opens a search bar called Spotlight. It’s like a toy finder that can only find one toy at a time. Raycast is what happens when that toy finder gets superpowers. It finds apps, organizes your windows, remembers everything you’ve ever copied, and searches GitHub. It’s like having one crayon that somehow draws in every color. The clipboard history alone saves me multiple times a day. “I KNOW I copied that five minutes ago” panic is now a thing of the past. One tool replaced three separate apps, and I am not going back.

Obsidian stores your notes as plain text files on your own computer. Not in someone else’s cloud, not in some weird format you can’t open later. It’s like writing in a regular notebook instead of one of those fancy locked diaries where you lose the key and all your notes are gone forever. If Obsidian vanished overnight, your notes would still be right there. I tried Notion, Craft, Apple Notes, and a half dozen others. I kept crawling back to “just give me a folder of files and leave me alone.” More on how I organize everything in my second brain post.

Linear is a to-do list for software projects. You know how some kids’ board games have 47 pages of rules and take an hour to set up? That’s Jira (the task tool big companies love). Linear is the version where you just roll the dice and play. Fast, clean, and you can control everything with your keyboard. Jira refugees will understand why I nearly cried the first time I used it.

Arc is a web browser that organizes your tabs into groups, like sorting your crayons into little cups by color. I have a “work” cup, a “personal” cup, and a “side projects” cup. Before Arc, my browser tabs looked like a crayon box that got dumped on the floor. Now they look like a crayon box that got dumped on the floor but at least I put labels on the piles. Progress is progress.

My ~/.gitconfig:

[user]
  name = Your Name         # Who you are. Git puts this on every save.
  email = you@example.com  # Same, but email.

[alias]
  co = checkout            # "co" instead of "checkout". Life's too short.
  br = branch              # See your branches without typing the whole word.
  ci = commit              # Save your work with less typing.
  st = status              # "What did I change?" in two letters.
  wip = !git add -A && git commit -m "WIP"  # Grab EVERYTHING and save it as "work in progress". Panic button.
  undo = reset --soft HEAD~1  # Oops. Undo that last save but keep the changes. I use this daily.
  lg = log --oneline --graph --decorate -20  # Show recent history as a pretty little tree.

[core]
  editor = cursor --wait          # Open Cursor when git needs me to type a message.
  excludesfile = ~/.gitignore_global  # Files to ignore everywhere. Stuff like .DS_Store.

[pull]
  rebase = true    # When I pull new stuff, put my changes on top instead of making a mess.

[init]
  defaultBranch = main  # New projects start with "main" not "master".

[diff]
  tool = cursor    # Use Cursor to show me what changed.

[merge]
  tool = cursor    # Use Cursor when two branches need to be smooshed together.

~/.dotfiles/
  ├── zsh/
  │   └── .zshrc              # Terminal settings and shortcuts
  ├── git/
  │   ├── .gitconfig          # All the git shortcuts from above
  │   └── .gitignore_global   # Files git should pretend don't exist
  ├── starship/
  │   └── starship.toml       # The prompt config (the name tag on the LEGO bin)
  └── install.sh              # One script to set everything up on a new computer

The best toys are the ones you grab without thinking. You don’t sit there admiring the LEGO brick, you just build with it. I wasted an embarrassing amount of time making my terminal look cool before realizing the goal isn’t a pretty terminal, it’s building stuff without wanting to throw my laptop. Pick tools that are fast, boring, and stay out of your way. Then STOP DECORATING and go build something. I’m telling you this, and also reminding myself.