Uses

A rundown of my setup and the current apps that I use in 2026. (2025 version).

Changes #

Every year I use Adobe less and less and less.

The biggest development this year has been adopting coding agents, and in particular Claude Code. Honestly, I’ve never been a big fan of typing, and despite a steep learning curve I’ve had huge success developing a new workflow. I’ve shipped projects I don’t think I could have before.

Raycast has replaced both Rectangle and Rocket for me, and Toggl replaced Cushion for time tracking. Fortunately, I could replace Cushion’s menu bar app with a Raycast extension. Toggl’s API was the main reason for switching: I was even able to use Claude Cowork to help automate some of my tracking reports from it. I also moved from iTerm 2 to Ghostty for its simplicity.

Hardware #

My main work machine is still a 2020 Mac Mini with an M1 chip which I use with a 5K LG display. I also have a 2022 15” M2 MacBook Air I can use away from the desk. The Mini’s M1 is going strong, the Air is plenty quick, and both run silently. I use Mackup and a dotfiles repo to keep my dev setup in sync between the two machines.

My main phone is a Pixel (a 5 at time of writing). The power button is broken but it’s still fast enough. I have some wireless AKG N Series headphones for work (very comfortable, but can fall off if I’m agreeing too enthusiastically on a call) and a pair of Nothing Ear Bluetooth earbuds.

Editor #

I use VS Code. The ability to customise it is extremely valuable to me because I work across a range of languages, and I got huge value from Caleb Porzio’s Make VS Code Awesome package. That gives me a really elegant setup with very few changes required.

I use the Fira Code font with custom ligatures set.

Terminal #

I use Ghostty with the Solarized Dark Patched theme and it runs the Z Shell with Oh My Zsh. I use Fira Code here too.

Coding agents #

Apart from the occasional use of Copilot completions in VS Code, I use Claude Code in Ghostty.

Git #

All of my project code is hosted on GitHub and I use the GitHub Desktop app for most tasks as it’s still much quicker and less error-prone for me to switch between projects and make commits with a GUI than on the command line.

Web #

I register domains with GoDaddy as they still seem to cover the most TLDs and I like the ability to access a client’s domains via my own account. The UI is a bit slow, but I haven’t had a serious issue with them yet. I tend to update the nameservers to use Cloudflare as I prefer to manage DNS records there.

For managed hosting I recommend 34SP, but I tend to host on Digital Ocean with servers managed by Forge. That provides me with a nice balance between being able to customise servers without having to leave my comfort zone.

For static sites I reach for Astro and host on Cloudflare Pages, but I still have a few on Netlify (including this site).

More often I’ve been using OrbStack for local containers, and deploying Docker containers to Digital Ocean droplets with more robust CI pipelines.

Misc #