These are things I would recommend. They are listed in no particular order, and I am entirely unaffiliated.

Here are some common principles these tools share.

incrementally explorable UX

• moving from day one/zero understanding to power user should happen within the app, not a manual
• modal interfaces can be good for this

Lazygit, which-key.nvim, btop

low latency

• input latency matters the most

Kitty, Neovim

declarative state

• let me describe what I want instead of how to get there

nix, atlas

exist at one extreme of the customization spectrum

• either enough flexibility to entirely build your own UI/UX
• or such a prescriptive design that only a few options are exposed

Neovim, Lazygit, Gnome, ghq

minimal lock in

• use simple data formats like plaintext, markdown, JSON, etc
• can be self hosted, but I'll often pay for a high uptime service

Bitwarden, ln.ht, WakaTime, Obsidian

keyboard first

• using a mouse is slower
• laptop trackpads are extra slow

Neovim

software

Nix(OS)

• declarative package (Nix) / system (NixOS) / user environment (Home Manager) management
  • installing, building, containerizing, virtualization, you name it, I'm using Nix
  • nix can be is confusing, poorly documented, and has some drama
  • once you get comfortable its awesome, but the learning curve is steep and the lack of adoption is unsuprising
• highlights
  • the store
    • packages built with nix are put in a content-addressed location, meaning the input to the build is hashed, and the final location of the build in the store is $HASH-packagename.
    • one of the side effects of this approach is installing multiple versions of the same package is trivial.
  • checkpoints
    • NixOS systems are almost unbreakable, because every rebuild makes a checkpoint. Each generation of the system fills $PATH with a collection of symlinks pointing to the nix store. If the majority of the installed packages is the same, keeping each generation becomes effectively free.
  • remote builds
    • anything you can build with Nix, you can build remotely with ~20 lines of config
    • why wait for my shrimpy laptop to compile gcc? just remotely build it on my beefy desktop with the same commands
    • when any of your buildMachines has a dependency that another builder needs, it will be transfered automatically
  • buildLayeredImage
    • build OCI (Docker) images where each store path automatically gets its own layer, so pushing an updated image to a registry will only transfer the changed layers. This is possible with normal Docker, but much simpler with nix.
  • nix-shell -p
    • opens a temporary shell with whatever package you want available
    • need some advice? nix-shell -p fortune cowsay to open the shell, then run fortune | cowsay.
  • nix-index finds files in nixpkgs
    • nix-locate libX11 will tell you which packages have a file matching the name libX11. This is very useful when running non-nix packaged software and missing a library.
  • comma
    • wraps nix-locate and which lets you run , fortune | , cowsay on a system that has neither installed

direnv

• evaluates .direnv files automatically when you enter directories containing them
• good for setting environment variables
• extremely powerful when combined with use flake to source a devShell from a flake.nix
  • you can think of it like installing software by changing directories
    • its like virtualenv, but for all software
  • with the automatically generated flake.lock, you can ensure that all devShell users get the same software
  • to convert a project to a direnv enabled flake:
    • nix flake new -t github:nix-community/nix-direnv . (source)

nh

• a really pretty coat of paint for the nix CLI

Kitty

• IMO the best terminal
• best in class performance
  • foot is a serious performance contender, but not quite as featureful (yet?)
  • WezTerm is good on Windows
• kittens hold the functionality that sets kitty apart
  • ctrl + shift + u to start unicode input
  • duplicate your environment remotely with the ssh kitten
    • kitten transfer $REMOTE_PATH $LOCAL_PATH during an ssh session to painlessly transfer files, also supports --upload
  • hints let you ergonomically open URLs or select file paths from the keyboard
  • graphics-protocol, which renders images inline in your terminal
• shout-out to Kovid Goyal, who also maintains Calibre and his personal custom browser 🤯

Gnome

• gnome is a better macOS
• the default software suite is lightweight, but covers everything you would want to do with a laptop
• as a former tiling window manager user, Alt + Tab and maximized windows are good enough
• notable extensions
  • paperwm
    • scrollable tiling window management for gnome
      • your desktop is infinitely wide, expanding as you add windows
    • inspired the more popular niri
  • run or raise

    • If the program already runs it will get the focus, else we launch it.

    • like alt-tab, but each applicaton gets a fixed shortcut
  • GSConnect
    • lets you control Gnome from your phone and vice versa
      • get a Gnome notification if your phone battery is low
      • use your phone's touchscreen as a trackpad to control Gnome

Neovim

• TODO (too much to say)
• notable extensions
  • flash/sneak/jetpack
  • whichkey
  • conform
  • treesitter
  • mini.nvim
  • oil.nvim
  • fzf-lua
  • DAP

Kanata

• software keyboard remapping

• I like customizing my input devices

  • I was previously into custom keyboards, but I have come to prefer software remapping
    • remapping your laptop's keyboard is way more portable than bringing an external keyboard

• my preferred collection of mods

  • Caps lock -> ESC
    • you press ESC infinitely more than you type in allcaps
  • home row mods
    • when tapping keys (aka normal typing), output the normal characters
      • f -> f
      • d -> d
    • when holding any home row key, treat that key as a modifier
      • a -> WIN
      • s -> ALT
      • d -> CTRL
      • f -> SHIFT
      • these are mirrored by the other home row keys, so j -> tap: j / hold: SHIFT
    • these are difficult to get used to
      • if you give them a try, try to pick your fingers up as quickly as you put them down
  • wide mod
    • Instead of there being two spaces between the home row positions, there are three.
    • 
  • colemak
    • DH
  • layers/arrow keys on homerow

Librewolf

• Firefox is cool, but it has some downsides
  • upsides
    • vertical tabs
    • custom search engines are awesome
      • I search https://search.nixos.org/packages?query=%s with @n all the time
  • downsides
    • "Firefox deletes promise to never sell personal data, asks users not to panic"
    • Pocket isn't very good
• LibreWolf applies patches to Firefox to fix those issues
  • installs uBlock Origin
  • removes all advertising and sponsored content
  • removes Pocket at compile time
  • deletes cookies and data for all websites not on the allowlist
  • and much more
• notable extensions
  • LinkHints
    • this lets you select links/inputs using only your keyboard
  • Bitwarden

fish shell

• I use the default settings. This is the highest praise I can give

zoxide

• cd with fuzzy matching sorted by frecency

Lazygit

• git TUI
• you can hit ? at any time to see what keys you can press next, letting you discover the UI incrementally.
• This lets Lazygit get away with a pretty complicated modal interface that is simultaniously a joy to explore.

atuin

• shell history management
  • fuzzy CTRL + R that can filter by host/directory/session
  • painless history sync across machines

starship

• fast shell-agnostic prompt

atlas

• declarative DB schema management
  1. update a single file schema.sql that holds your schema definition
  2. run atlas to compare that file the current DB schema
  3. approve the generated migrations
     • if they are incorrect, edit schema.sql until they look good
• useful for AI workflows, simply put schema.sql in your context

Podman

• podman is a drop in replacement for the docker CLI that fixes:
  • adding a user to the "docker" group is equivalent to making it root
  • the docker daemon is a single point of failure

fzf

• fuzzy search provider
• I either use fzf directly or fuzzy search on every input I can

btop

• system monitoring at a glance
• high information density
• discoverable UI/shortcuts

ghq

• an opinionated way to organize your local git repos
• if you have lots of repos checked out across lots of computers, let ghq remember where everything goes

d2

• diagramming

services

Kagi

• a paid search engine
• if its free, you are the product

Fastmail

• custom domain email management
• supports some cool features
  • anonymous masked emails
  • wildcard delivery
    • you can use $SERVICE_NAME@$YOUR_DOMAIN for every $SERVICE and they all go to one inbox

Tailscale

• mesh VPN that makes networking between machines a breeze
• built with wireguard

self hosted with Headscale

NextDNS

• DNS level ad blocking
• with Tailscale, you can run a tailnet wide adblock
  • its like a pi-hole but at the VPN level, meaning you can use it on any network

Bitwarden

• password manager
• trivializes sharing passwords with your friends and loved ones, and you can self host it if you want
• the browser extension is well thought out and always acts how one would want/expect
• open source!

self host-able

WakaTime

• tracks coding time automatically by recording edits per file
• very useful if you need to track billing

self hosted with wakapi

hardware

ThinkPad X1 Carbon (6th)

• my daily driver since 2018
• very light, makes a macbook feel like a brick
• great linux support
• a pretty darn good keyboard
  • the speaker/mic mute buttons have lights
  • a dedicated screenshot button
  • wide delete key right above backspace

Jelly Star

• a cellphone as big as a credit card
• thicker than most smartphones, but it has a great heft
• sadly, 4G only phones are supported by fewer carriers each year, so it wont last too much longer

nwm ONE

• more like on ear speakers than headphones
• light
• the open design gives them the opposite of noise cancellation
  • however, they can be worn forever without making your ears stuffy
  • you have more situational awareness
• they don't leak nearly as much noise as you would expect

stack

• can be managed by a single developer
• inexpensive to get started
• scales well

Go

• my preferred language for web applications
  • simple syntax
  • straightforward type system
    • static typing is great, but IMO mostly as a form of documentation
    • a good middleground between dynamic/duck typing and strong type systems like TypeScript or Rust
  • errors as values
    • as controversial it is, I have grown to love the readability of if err := nil
      • you will always spend more time reading code than writing it
  • easy concurrency with goroutines
    • sync provides really nice concurrency primitives
    • easy cancellation with context
  • great standard library
    • you can build real software using just the stdlib
      • net/http
      • database/sql
      • flag
    • very readable if you want to peek under the hood
  • directives
    • comments that do stuff at compile time
    • embed files into the compiled program

      //go:embed hello.txt
      var s string

  • testing
    • fuzzy
    • benchmarking
• profiling tools
  • delve for debugging
  • pprof for sampled profiling

fly.io

• if it runs in an OCI container (Docker/Podman), you can run it on Fly in 10 minutes
• it converts those containers to Firecracker Virtual Machines which boot almost instantly, meaning you can easily scale to 0
• any use under 5$ a month is free
• easily set up automatic staging previews per PR with fly-pr-review-apps

Tigris

• object storage
• zero egress fees
• low global latency
• bucket snapshots
• Fly integration

sqlite

• my favorite RDB
• embed it directly in your application to remove network latency
• turn on the write-ahead log

  • Reading and writing can proceed concurrently

• back up to object storage with Litestream

porkbun

• domain name registrar
• prodigiously porky presentation paragon performantly purveys perfectly priced pages

Open Props

• a curated collection of CSS variables
• gives you the opinionated defaults of Tailwind, but sidesteps the confusing mess that tailwind classes become.
• encourages you to use CSS how it was designed, instead of utility classes

varnish cache

• in memory cache for frequently visited pages

duckdb

• analytics db