Dev tools — my must-haves in 2026 (terminal, editor, tooling)

Each quarter I audit my dev tools. Picked new ones, dropped old ones, didn't keep things "because they were always there". After a year I have a list of 10 tools I really use daily. Each picked deliberately. Showing each.

Terminal: WezTerm

From iTerm2 → Alacritty → Kitty → WezTerm. I stay on WezTerm because:

• config in Lua (not YAML)
• multiplexing built in (replaces tmux for 90% of cases)
• GPU-accelerated
• ligatures work out of the box

-- ~/.wezterm.lua
return {
  font = wezterm.font 'JetBrains Mono',
  font_size = 13.0,
  color_scheme = 'tokyonight',
  use_fancy_tab_bar = false,
}

5 lines, works. Alacritty needed a plugin for tabs, Kitty crashed on me.

Editor: Cursor

From VSCode → Cursor. Cursor is a VSCode fork with deeper AI integration. Tab-completion (like GitHub Copilot but better) + chat side panel + composer (multi-file edits).

Composer is the killer feature, describe a change, it edits 3-4 files at once. Regular AI completion gives one line at a time.

But Claude Code (terminal) is my primary tool. I use Cursor for quick edits, Claude Code for bigger tasks.

CLI: ripgrep, fd, bat, jq, fzf

The classic five that replaced grep/find/cat:

# ripgrep instead of grep
rg "useState" --type tsx
 
# fd instead of find
fd "*.config.ts" --max-depth 3
 
# bat instead of cat (with highlighting)
bat src/auth.ts
 
# jq for JSON
docker ps --format json | jq '.[] | .Names'
 
# fzf as a fuzzy finder
git checkout $(git branch | fzf)

Each is 10× faster with better UX than the BSD/GNU equivalent.

Git: lazygit + delta

lazygit is a git TUI. Vim-like keybindings, line-level staging, instant diff view:

lazygit
# in UI: space = stage, c = commit, P = push, etc.

git-delta is a pretty diff renderer. In ~/.gitconfig:

[core]
  pager = delta
[delta]
  syntax-theme = github-dark
  side-by-side = true

git diff shows side-by-side with syntax highlighting. Changes review.

Docker: lazydocker

Like lazygit, but for Docker. TUI showing all containers, logs, statuses, restartable:

lazydocker

In UI: space = pause/unpause, r = restart, l = logs. Replaces 5 different docker ps, docker logs, docker stats commands.

Notes: Obsidian (with CouchDB)

I wrote about it already, markdown + livesync. Daily notes, project notes, code snippets. Searchable by tags.

Dotfiles management: chezmoi

After years of stow, ad-hoc copy, crappy Dropbox sync, chezmoi. Templating + secrets + multi-host:

chezmoi init https://github.com/user/dotfiles.git
chezmoi apply

Per-host overrides via templates. Secrets via 1Password integration. Chezmoi = git pull for my setup on a new machine.

Communication: Telegram + Slack-only-when-must

Telegram is my default. Agent bot + partner comms + family. Slack only if a client requires.

Backup: BorgBackup

Incremental snapshots, deduplication, encryption. Hard backups for:

• ~/projects/ → external drive
• Postgres dump → external drive
• Obsidian vault → cloud (B2)

borg create --stats backup-repo::backup-{now} ~/projects

Daily cron. 3 years of operation, 0 data loss.

What I dropped along the way

Tools I used in 2024-2025 and threw out:

• VSCode → Cursor
• iTerm2 → WezTerm
• find → fd
• grep → ripgrep
• tmux → built-in WezTerm multiplexing
• VS Code GitLens → lazygit + delta
• DBeaver → CLI psql + DBmate
• Postman → CLI curl + httpie
• Notion → Obsidian
• Trello → Vikunja

I don't miss any. Every upgrade gave me a faster workflow.

What I'm considering but haven't taken

• Helix instead of Cursor, modal editor with built-in LSP. Tried for 2 weeks, dropped because Claude Code in terminal covers most editor needs.
• Atuin instead of standard shell history, sync history across hosts, better search. Trying, not decided yet.
• mise (rtx) instead of nvm/pyenv/etc., one manager for all language runtimes. Migration in progress.

The 10-tool list isn't "the 10 best ever". It's my daily loop. Quarterly audit, what came in, what went out, why. Without an audit I'd have a pile of zombie tools "because it used to work". Audit your list. Brutally.