---
title: Developer Tools
date: 2022-03-09
description: An overview of my current developer toolchain including Ghostty, Neovim, Zsh, and a curated set of CLI utilities.
tags: [shell, neovim]
---

I don't know who needs to hear this but:\
**I love my developer tools**.

## Core

- **Package Manager**: [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/)
- **Terminal**: [Ghostty](https://ghostty.org)
- **Code Editor**: [Neovim](https://neovim.io)

## History

- Used stock macOS Terminal.app with [tmux](https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki)
  for 10+ years.
- I tried [iTerm2](https://iterm2.com/),
  [Kitty](https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/), [Alacritty](https://alacritty.org/),
  [WesTerm](https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/) but none really fit well for me.
- Constant colour issues forced me to switch from tmux to
  [Zellij](https://zellij.dev).
- I moved to using [Warp](https://www.warp.dev/) for a few years, but it still
  had issues.
- I finally landed on [Ghostty](https://ghostty.org) which has been great. Yes,
  it still has minor issues but the community is active and open.

## Workflow

I use [Zsh](https://www.zsh.org) Autocomplete with
[fzf-tab](https://github.com/Aloxaf/fzf-tab) to replace Zsh's default completion
selection menu with [fzf](https://github.com/junegunn/fzf) which works really
nicely.

I mostly use terminal splits and tabs for dividing up projects and tasks, and on
the occasion I'll use Neovim's built-in terminal across multiple splits or
floating windows. Otherwise, the other part of Ghostty I use _a lot_ is its
floating terminal that can be triggered from anywhere via a hotkey (as long as
Ghostty is open somewhere).

> [!TIP]
> You can find my Neovim config [here](https://github.com/integralist/nvim) and
> my dotfiles [here](https://github.com/integralist/dotfiles).

## Supplementary

- **Code Statistics**: [Tokei](https://github.com/XAMPPRocky/tokei/blob/master/README.md)
- **DNS Client**: [Doggo](https://github.com/mr-karan/doggo/blob/main/README.md)
- **Directory Lister**: [Tree](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_(command)>)
- **Directory Navigator**: [Broot](https://github.com/Canop/broot/blob/master/README.md)
- **Directory Switcher**: [Zoxide](https://github.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide/blob/main/README.md)
- **Disk Usage**: [Duf](https://github.com/muesli/duf/blob/master/README.md)
- **Feed Reader**: [Tuifeed](https://github.com/veeso/tuifeed/blob/main/README.md)
- **File Content Display**: [Bat](https://github.com/sharkdp/bat/blob/master/README.md)
- **File Finder**: [Fd](https://github.com/sharkdp/fd/blob/master/README.md)
- **File Lister**: [Exa](https://github.com/ogham/exa/blob/master/README.md)
- **File Removal**: [Rip](https://github.com/nivekuil/rip/blob/master/README.org)
- **File Space Usage**: [Dust](https://github.com/bootandy/dust/blob/master/README.md)
- **Network Reachability**: [Gping](https://github.com/orf/gping/blob/master/readme.md)
- **Network Utilisation**: [Bandwhich](https://github.com/imsnif/bandwhich/blob/main/README.md)
- **Process Status**: [Procs](https://github.com/dalance/procs/blob/master/README.md)
- **Process/System Monitor**: [Htop](https://github.com/htop-dev/htop/#readme) †
- **Shell**: [Zsh](https://www.zsh.org)
- **Shell Autocomplete**: [FZF-tab](https://github.com/Aloxaf/fzf-tab)
- **Shell Prompt**: [Starship](https://starship.rs/)

> [!INFO]
> † I had switched to
> [Bottom](https://github.com/ClementTsang/bottom/blob/master/README.md) but
> `htop` is so much more flexible and configurable, and although the graphs in
> `btm` are nice, I don't _need_ them.

## Browser

Controversial, but I had moved away from
[Firefox](https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/new/) with a whole suite of
security/privacy minded tools to [Apple's
Safari](https://www.apple.com/uk/safari/) browser.

I _was_ using Safari's ["Tab
Group"](https://twitter.com/integralist/status/1514526555275501569?s=20&t=BJu3WlWq6dhoeAarJf91ig)
feature, which I _really_ liked along with the following extensions...

- AdBlock One
- Dark Reader for Safari
- SimplyJSON for Safari
- Super Agent for Safari (Cookie Consent Automation)

...but ultimately the Tab Groups feature ended up being super buggy and
duplicating bookmarks and groups etc and I couldn't get the issue resolved, so I
ended up back with Google Chrome.

> [!INFO]
> In the future I'll likely switch over to using
> [Ladybird](https://ladybird.org/).