In 2025, I decided to embrace simplicity. I'd spent the previous year "ricing" my system and trying to find the best combination of tools that produced the highest output of productivity before realizing that literally none of it matters if I don't actually care about the tool.

Anyway, here's what I'm using in 2026.

TL;DR —

Browser: Arc
IDE: VS Code & Neovim
Terminal: Ghostty with tmux & oh-my-zsh
Organization: Obsidian
Productivity: Raycast

Browser

I use Arc as my main browser, but it's worth mentioning that I'm actively looking for alternatives. I love the sidebar and haven't found another browser that gets it right.

IDE

I use VS Code for the bulk of my work, but I'm still working on using Neovim when I can. I'd love to transition to Neovim entirely, but I'm waiting (and hoping) for a point where I can feel the difference in productivity.

Extensions

Beyond project-specific extensions, I keep it minimal and only use the Vitesse Black theme.

Terminal

For the vast majority of people, I'm not sure that you'll be able to feel a real difference in terminal emulators. I certainly can't (skill issue). I edit files, run git commands, and do pretty basic command-line stuff.

I'd probably be fine with the default Apple Terminal, but I enjoy exploring and supporting new technologies, which is why I'm using Ghostty. It's handled everything I've needed it to, and that's fine with me.

tmux

I probably don't use tmux to its fullest potential, but having it has just been convenient. Anything I need to do that I can't trust not to break when I look away is taken care of with tmux. It's that simple.

oh-my-zsh

I genuinely just wanted my terminal to look cooler, and it does thanks to oh-my-zsh. That's it.

Organization

I've been using Obsidian for a few years now and I don't think I'll ever use something else. I started using it as an editor for my blog, since every post is just a Markdown file, but it's become the knowledge base for my life.

Whether it's code, music, or D&D, it's essential in my workflow.

Productivity

I don't think it's possible to overstate how powerful and useful Raycast has been to literally everything that I do, even outside of development. Most of what I do on my system begins with Raycast, and it has made everything ridiculously easy.

Conclusion

I'm sure as my workflows change, so too will this list. But it served me in 2025 without much change, and I'm certain it will continue to in 2026. The most important thing to me is building things. As long as my workflow allows for that, I'm willing to add or cut whatever I need to. I want to focus on practical utility over technical complexity.

If you have any suggestions for tools, feel free to tell me about them.

Thanks for reading! & as always, happy coding!