I'm all-in on TypeScript now. TypeScript gets first-class support for most modern web development tools and my interfaces are great AI food and guardrails. I love Python but don't currently use it since I do 100% TypeScript webdev right now. I don't really write HTML directly anymore but I do throw the occassional HTML element into my React and Markdown pages. Shell I use daily for basic plumbing: installing packages, file operations, git operations, CLI tools.

This is my daily toolkit. React and TypeScript are what I'm writing most of the day, and I'm usually writing those inside of a Next.js app deployed to Vercel. Cloudflare is my registrar, DNS management, object storage, and CDN. GitHub Copilot is currently my AI coding assistant of choice (Claude Sonnet 4.5 for general work, Claude Opus 4.6 for tough problems, GPT-4o for natural language editing). VS Code is where I live. Chrome DevTools helps me with many aspects of my webapps. Jaygriff.com is pretty helpful too, highly recommend.

The list of what I use these for goes on and on: brainstorming, writing, designing, learning, debugging, coding—you name it. ChatGPT started it all, but OpenAI manages to make all of their products quite annoying except their API. Claude from Anthropic is incredibly helpful and has become my go-to for most tasks. Gemini is a solid all-rounder when I need a different perspective.

Insanely good for rapid prototyping app ideas and UI. Amazing what these can generate. I don't ship their vibecoded output to production—I prefer to ship code I understand which may mean doing a rewrite—but I take inspiration and study the generated repos for new code ideas. I could write on and on how I study app builders, their system prompts, and their outputs.

Notion is my main hub for writing and notes because it's fast for capturing lots of content and syncs across all devices. I admire Obsidian from afar (the hotkeys, settings, and aesthetic are amazing) but I don't actively use it. Surprisingly little use for spreadsheets these days given I'm a former accountant—most of my needs are met with Notion and custom coded tools. Current use case? Splitting expenses with my roommate using Google Sheets. The Microsoft Office Suite I have used for work when required. Locus is a custom Chrome extension I built for bookmark launching—I use it daily.

Affinity is my go-to for image and vector graphic work—professional-grade design tools without the Adobe subscription. I also use online SVG tools when I need quick edits. I used Canva heavily before but use it less often now because Affinity handles most of what I need. I do very little photo editing these days—when I do, it's practical stuff: cropping, aligning, background removal, unnecessary detail removal, optimization, and fixing aspect ratios and pixel sizes.

Recording demos of what I'm programming to display functionality, timelapse changes, and progress. It's powerful, free, and handles everything I need for creating technical content.

I've used Figma for visualizing and wireframing sites. As a solo dev who's a programmer first, I found it less helpful than expected. I prefer vibecoding a rough version of the feature or page, then iterating on the design in code. It's hard to wireframe automated pages and systems and true interactions! Coolors helps me generate and explore color palettes, though I often just ask AI for color scheme suggestions.

Hammerspoon lets me automate macOS with Lua scripts—creating custom keyboard shortcuts and window management. AutoHotKey was for automating computer use on Windows: text expansion, window control, tool launching, and text manipulation. AI now does all the text expansion and manipulation I need.

These are the tools I'm actively watching in the AI coding space. The ones that made me realize AI isn't just a better search engine—it's an action engine that can do fine-grained work in the real world.

I'm excited about these tools but haven't carved out time to properly explore them. LangChain and LangSmith look powerful for building AI applications and agent workflows.

I don't much personal infrastructure, but I study it extensively. I've realized that infra-aware software matters more to me than running infrastructure for its own sake. My own apps aren't at the level where they require or benefit from tons of personal infra—there are a LOT of ways to achieve things with hosted services these days. The main use cases where homelab makes sense: GPU compute, performant mass storage, privacy, security, and learning.

My current plan for this site is to start implementing image and gif composition support throughout all my articles—I'll save the files locally, then host optimized versions in object storage. So a NAS is in my future. Another project I may need personal infra for (if a service doesn't meet the need) is sandboxed YOLO mode for AI coding assistants.

I'm enjoying CSS-in-JS now and haven't been using Tailwind unless it's the default for app builders. DaisyUI provided nice components, but I don't use it anymore—I'll usually make a custom component if I need it. More control, cleaner code, better understanding of what's happening under the hood.

Django and Flask were my Python web frameworks for earlier projects. Express I never made many things of substance with it. WordPress, my enemy, was for old blog tests from way back. I've moved on to Next.js and haven't looked back.

From when I was learning about web dev and project structure—before I went all-in on Next.js. Hugo is blazing fast and great for static sites, but the templating language was a pain.

Netlify was my hosting platform of choice for static sites and serverless functions. Switched to Vercel from Netlify mainly because of Next.js integration—they felt identical otherwise, but Vercel's Next.js support is seamless.

Old photo and vector editing tools. I do very little of this work now, and when I do, it's simpler tasks that Affinity handles well. AI has also replaced a lot of my graphic creation needs. Photoshop was too expensive with its subscription model. Photopea was cool as a web-based alternative, but Affinity wins. Inkscape served me well for vector work until Affinity Designer came along. GIMP was free, but you really do get what you pay for. Affinity conquered them all.