/opt
The applications. Everything here is installed declaratively from the same manifest as the command-line tooling, which means a new machine arrives with this list already true, and anything removed from the list is removed from the machine on the next prune. Nothing accumulates by accident.
Editors & AI
- VS Code
- The default editor, and the one most likely to already be open on a client's machine when pairing.
- Cursor
- Kept alongside rather than instead of. Different enough at AI-assisted editing to be worth the duplication.
- ChatGPT
- A second model to check reasoning against. The value is the disagreement, not the convenience.
The AI command-line tools are installed separately — see the moving-target note in /etc.
Terminal
- iTerm2
- Preferences are committed to the repository rather than left in the system defaults database, so terminal setup restores with everything else.
- Nerd Fonts
- JetBrains Mono and Hack, patched. The prompt uses glyphs to carry meaning, so the font is a dependency rather than a preference.
Containers
- OrbStack
- The container and Kubernetes engine. Faster and substantially lighter than the obvious alternative, and the difference is noticeable on battery.
The Docker and Kubernetes command-line tools are installed independently of the engine, so the CLI does not depend on which engine is running.
Productivity
- 1Password
- Secrets, SSH agent, and commit signing. It is the only credential store on the machine, which is what makes that claim verifiable.
- Raycast
- Launcher, clipboard history, and snippets. Replaces three smaller tools.
- Rectangle
- Deterministic window snapping from the keyboard. Deterministic is the requirement — a layout that lands differently each time is worse than no tool.
- Stats
- Menu-bar CPU, network, and disk. Mostly useful for noticing a runaway build before the fans do.
- Hidden Bar
- Menu-bar declutter, which the tool above makes necessary.
Browsers
- Chrome
- The compatibility baseline, and where cloud consoles are opened in per-account isolated profiles rather than tabs.
- Firefox
- A genuinely independent engine. Worth keeping for testing, and for keeping one browser that is not the default.
- Arc
- Still installed, on notice. It is in maintenance mode upstream, and a browser that is no longer developed is a dependency with an expiry date.