What I use.

Primary development machine for everything — coding, design, content creation.

Tactile feedback makes long coding sessions much more bearable.

One for code, one for browser/docs. Non-negotiable for productivity.

Deep focus mode. Spotify lo-fi + these = flow state every time.

Primary IDE for Spring Boot and Java microservices. Best-in-class refactoring tools.

Frontend work — Next.js, React, TypeScript. Lightweight and genuinely fast.

The theme I always come back to. Easy on the eyes for long sessions.

My go-to coding font. Clear ligatures, comfortable at any size.

Terminal with proper split panes, theming, and real speed.

Zsh plugins + autosuggestions make CLI 10× faster without trying.

Backbone of all my backend microservices. Convention over configuration done right.

My default for any web project. App Router + RSC is a genuine game changer.

Utility-first CSS. Once you use it you genuinely can't go back.

Every project runs in containers locally. No "works on my machine" excuses.

Event streaming backbone of ShopVerse. Nothing else scales like it.

Caching layer for everything performance-critical. Also great for pub/sub.

Default relational database. Reliable, feature-rich, battle-tested.

API testing. The collections feature keeps microservice testing sane.

UI/UX design and prototyping. Auto Layout + Variables make it powerful.

Clean, consistent icon set. Used across every single project I build.

High-quality stock photography for projects and blog posts.

Fast color palette generation. Great starting point for any new project.

Everything lives here — project notes, DSA prep, blog drafts, client proposals.

Issue tracking for serious projects. Cleaner than Jira, faster than Trello.

Spotlight replacement. App launcher, clipboard history, snippets — indispensable.

My daily browser. Spaces keep work, personal, and client projects separated.

Lo-fi hip hop for deep work. Metalcore for debugging.

My primary AI assistant. Best for reasoning, writing, and architectural decisions.

In-editor autocomplete. Saves time on boilerplate and generating test coverage.

AI-powered search for research. Better than Googling for technical topics.

My blog — built with Next.js 15, Firebase, and custom markdown rendering.

Where I share AI/tech insights. Growing developer voice (@AKirtesh).

Catches the typos I miss. Especially useful for client emails and proposals.