Setting Up Mac for Development [May 2026]

Mostly on a MacBook Pro now, with a Mac Mini (M4, 16GB, 512GB) at the desk. Very different setup from 2025.

A year is a long time in 2026. The AI coding tools I was running in May 2025 are mostly gone from my dock. Here's the toolkit I'd put on a fresh Mac today.

🧰 Core tools

Homebrew. Still the package manager for everything.
zsh + oh-my-zsh. Config stays small; fast startup matters.
iTerm2. Still my daily terminal. Ghostty is on the list to try.
fnm. Rust-based Node version manager. Drop-in replacement for nvm, ~10x faster shell startup.
bun for anything where Node feels slow.
uv. Python package and project manager. Quietly replaced pip and virtualenv for me.
pyenv. Kept around for legacy Python projects.

🤖 The 2026 AI coding stack

This is the section that aged fastest from the 2025 post, so it gets the most attention.

I used Windsurf for about 5 months, then Cursor for another 5 or 6. Both were good. Both got replaced once terminal-native agents got good enough. Today I use three:

Codex for long, delegated work. Parallel worktrees, multiple agents on different branches, while I do something else. Best when I want to come back to a finished result and review it.
Claude Code is my default for anything I want to stay in the loop on. Lives in the repo, plays well with MCP servers, fits the "agent operating inside my project" mode.
Antigravity. I open it sometimes as an IDE to see the code an agent produced, scroll the diff, or make a focused manual edit. Not my daily editor.

Setting up a Mac today and only want to install one? Start with Claude Code.

📦 Daily drivers

Raycast. Launcher and snippet expansion. The thing I open most after the browser.
Rectangle. Window snapping.
Flycut. Clipboard manager.
VS Code. Plain editor when I don't want an agent in the way.
Wispr Flow. Voice-to-text everywhere. Faster than typing for messages and prompts.
Notion. Work and personal notes.
Tailscale. Private mesh between my machines.
Chrome. Default browser.
Slack, Discord, WhatsApp for comms.
Figma. Design and the occasional spec.
Spotify for music.

⚙️ CLI toolbelt

Stuff I install on every machine and then forget I'm using:


brew install gh ripgrep tmux tig htop jq pandoc \
  ffmpeg imagemagick whisper-cpp nmap ngrok \
  stripe cloudflare-wrangler render asc gemini-cli

gh for GitHub from the terminal.
rg for search. Replaced grep in my muscle memory.
tmux, tig for sessions and a sane Git browser.
whisper-cpp for local transcription.
Cloud CLIs (wrangler, render, stripe, asc, etc.). Install the ones you actually deploy to.

🧠 Personal shell ergonomics

A few aliases and functions from my .zshrc that pull their weight:


# Project jumps
alias pj="cd ~/projects"

# npm shortcuts
alias nd="npm run dev"
alias nb="npm run build"
alias ni="npm install"

# Claude Code, too useful to type out
alias c="claude"
alias cladue="claude"   # because I mistype it constantly

# Quick git worktree on a new branch
wt() {
  local branch="$1"
  local dir="../$(basename "$PWD")__${branch//\//-}"
  git worktree add -b "$branch" "$dir" && cd "$dir"
}

The wt helper became essential once I started running multiple agents in parallel. Each one gets its own worktree.

🧷 System tweaks

Faster keyboard repeat:


defaults write -g InitialKeyRepeat -int 15
defaults write -g KeyRepeat -int 1

Disable auto-correct (it fights you in the terminal):


defaults write -g NSAutomaticSpellingCorrectionEnabled -bool false

🗝 Bonus setup

Xcode Command Line Tools (Git, compilers, etc.):


xcode-select --install

Git identity:


git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "[email protected]"

SSH key for GitHub:


ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "[email protected]"
pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

Claude Code with MCP servers. Once Claude Code is installed, wire up the MCP servers you actually use (Linear, GitHub, Playwright, etc.).

Project folder:


mkdir ~/projects

📚 Resources

Setting Up Mac for Development (2025) (previous edition)
ZSH Aliases for Productivity
fnm · uv · Raycast
Claude Code · Codex · Antigravity

The current toolkit and the AI coding stack I'd put on a fresh Mac today. A year after my 2025 setup.