Curated · 12 items
Tools
Things I install on a fresh machine before anything else, or reach for often enough to keep a list.
PhpStorm
Where all the plugin work actually happens — the WordPress stub integration and Xdebug step-through are worth the license on their own.
jetbrains.com ↗Xdebug Key
A small menu bar toggle for switching Xdebug on and off without editing php.ini by hand mid-debug session.
xdebug.org ↗TablePlus
The GUI I reach for over wp-cli when I need to eyeball wp_postmeta after a migration went sideways.
tableplus.com ↗Warp
A terminal that treats blocks and AI completion as first-class, which matters when you're bouncing between PHP, TS and Python shells all day.
warp.dev ↗Ollama
Running local models to test LangChain and LangGraph flows offline before burning API credits on the real thing.
ollama.com ↗Anaconda Navigator
Keeps the Python environments for different AI engineering projects from fighting each other over package versions.
anaconda.com ↗RapidAPI
Useful for probing a third-party API's actual shape before wiring it into a LangChain tool or a plugin's REST bridge.
rapidapi.com ↗GitHub Desktop
Not my daily driver for commits, but the fastest way to review a messy diff before it goes into a PR.
desktop.github.com ↗Zed
Fast enough that it's become the default for quick edits and one-off scripts where PhpStorm would be overkill.
zed.dev ↗Claude
Where most of the LangChain and LangGraph design thinking happens before a single line gets written — pairing on architecture, not just code.
claude.ai ↗VS Code
The default for TypeScript and Python work — Copilot-adjacent extensions and a lighter footprint than PhpStorm when I'm not touching PHP.
code.visualstudio.com ↗Brave Browser
Daily browsing and quick DevTools checks, kept separate from the profile I use for client staging logins.
brave.com ↗Have something that needs building, fixing, or finishing? Write one paragraph — that's usually enough.