tools & stack

these are the tools I actually use. not aspirational, not "I tried this once". for tools I've built myself, see personal-infrastructure — these are in my daily or weekly workflow.

AI coding tools

this is the most important section. AI tools are the biggest force multiplier for solo builders right now. see learning-paths for the "vibe coding" section on using AI tools well.

Claude Code

• what: Anthropic's CLI-based AI coding agent. runs in your terminal. reads your codebase, writes code, runs commands.
• my usage: 500+ sessions. this is my primary coding tool. it's the closest thing to having a senior engineer pair-programming with you 24/7. for solo builders, this is game-changing.
• cost: requires a Claude API subscription or Claude Pro/Max plan.

VS Code with Claude Code extension

• my main editor. VS Code is the default for a reason — extensions ecosystem is unmatched.

Cursor

• what: VS Code fork with AI built in. autocomplete, chat, codebase-aware editing.
• honest take: I used this before moving to Claude Code as my primary tool. the inline editing (cmd+K) is fast for small changes. good tool, I just prefer the CLI workflow now.

GitHub Copilot

• what: AI autocomplete in your editor.
• how I have it: free through GitHub Student Developer Pack.
• honest take: the tab-complete is seamless. less powerful than Claude Code for complex tasks, but the speed of autocomplete is hard to beat for quick edits.

hosting & deployment

Vercel

• deploys frontend apps from a git push. zero-config. generous free tier (unlimited projects, 100GB bandwidth/month). this is where most of my projects live.

Cloudflare

• CDN, DNS, Workers (serverless), Pages (static hosting), R2 (storage). the free tier is absurdly generous. I use Cloudflare DNS for everything.

Supabase

• free Postgres database + auth + storage + realtime. the "Firebase but open source" play. great for MVPs. my go-to for any project that needs a database.

Railway

• deploys backend services and databases. "heroku but modern." $5/month free usage. the simplest way to deploy a backend.

design

Figma

• the industry standard. free tier is enough for personal projects. even as "just a developer," wireframing in Figma before coding saves time and produces better results.

hardware tools

KiCad

• PCB design. open source. for when software isn't enough and you need to make physical things. see hardware-projects for the full hardware journey.

development environment

iTerm2 + tmux

• iTerm2 as my terminal emulator. tmux for persistent sessions. every long-running process goes in tmux.

Git / GitHub

• git for version control (obviously). GitHub for repos, CI/CD with Actions, and the Student Developer Pack. see open-source for contributing to other projects.

Obsidian

• my note-taking tool. local-first, markdown-based. I keep everything here. see knowledge-management for the full system.

1Password

• password manager and secrets management. the CLI (op) is useful for injecting secrets into development environments.

the free stack

here's the complete stack I use for launching projects at $0:

total monthly cost: $0 until you have paying users. see shipping-products for how to go from this stack to a live product. then Stripe takes a cut of revenue. zero upfront cost — you only pay when you're making money.