The kit I actually keep open.
The tools I keep around for product, design, software, and the rest of the week.
Always open
Product
LinearHow I keep work moving without turning it into a status meeting.
JiraWhere a lot of the company still lives. I have used it alongside everything else.- ObsidianWhere notes become a system. Specs, research, and half-formed product thoughts.
PostHogThe honest version of what people do after they click.
MobbinReal product screens when I need a reference, not a mood board.
MazePut a prototype in front of people before I fall in love with it.
DovetailWhere interviews stop being a pile of notes and start becoming a pattern.
IntercomSupport and the in-product conversation. Close to the customer, not a ticket pile.
Design
- FigmaWhere every product starts. Frames, prototypes, and the UI I end up shipping.
Screen StudioThe way a product should look when you show it, not just when you ship it.
ExcalidrawWhen I need a diagram in two minutes and Figma would slow me down.
FramerFor sites that need to feel designed, not assembled.
AdobeOlder muscle. Still useful for marks, print, and the occasional illustration.
UI & UX
shadcn/uiThe components I actually ship. Copy them in, then make them mine.
Beautiful UIPatterns for AI products. Thinking states, streaming, the stuff a normal kit does not have.
Tailwind CSSHow the UI gets its shape. Utilities instead of a stylesheet I will not maintain.
v0Describe the screen, get something close enough to start from.
Magic UIMotion and polish when the default component still looks like a default component.
21st.devA shelf of components to steal from. Faster than starting from a blank frame.
Origin UIMore shadcn pieces. Forms and the boring product UI that still has to look good.
Radix UIThe accessible primitives under a lot of this. When I need the behavior, not the skin.
LucideThe icon set. Clean, consistent, and already in the repo.
MotionAnimation without making the page feel like a Dribbble shot.
Software
GitHubSource of truth. If it is not here, it is not real yet.- ConvexThe backend I reach for when I want to ship instead of wire infrastructure.
Next.jsDefault for the web. I stop thinking about the framework and start on the product.
ExpoDefault for mobile. Same product, on a phone.
VercelWhere it goes live.
AI
How I rank them
The models I actually pick. Cursor first, then coding, then Claude when the problem gets harder.
- 1
Grok 4.6 HighBest in Cursor · via Cursor · High FastGrok 4.6 on High, Fast. The one I actually enjoy pairing with in the editor. Agentic coding that still feels snappy, without waiting on a heavier Claude pass. - 2
GPT-5 SolBest for coding · via CodexWhat I run in Codex. Terminal-Bench, repo work, the agent that will sit in a codebase and keep going. GPT-5 Sol is the coding specialist in that family. - 3
Claude Opus 5Best Claude for coding · via ClaudeThe Claude that sits next to GPT-5 Sol. SWE-bench, repo agents, long coding passes. Fable is for when the problem is bigger than the codebase. - 4Claude Fable 5Best for hard problems · via ClaudeThe top Anthropic model. Long-horizon agents, messy reasoning, the pass I take when it has to be the best model in the room. Leads the intelligence indexes for a reason.
Around them
- CursorThe editor I write almost everything in now. Also the AI I work beside.
LangChainEvals and traces. How I see what the model actually did, not what I hoped it did.
GreptileAnother model on the PR. Reviews the diff and catches security issues I would skip past.- Wispr FlowVoice to text that keeps up. I talk, it writes.
Vercel AI GatewayOne door to many model providers. I switch LLMs without rewriting the stack.
Collaboration
SlackThe hallway. Most of the real conversation still happens here.- Microsoft TeamsThe other hallway. When the company lives in Microsoft, this is the room.
- LoomThe fastest way to show a product instead of writing a paragraph about it.
ConfluenceThe wiki the team actually opens. Specs, decisions, and the page you search for later.
