People ask me all the time what tools I use. Here's the honest answer — the ones I actually open every day, not the ones I tried once and forgot about.
Claude (Anthropic)
This is my primary building partner. I use Claude for everything — writing code, debugging, planning architecture, generating content, even rubber-ducking ideas. The reasoning is genuinely good. It doesn't just autocomplete — it thinks through problems.
Cursor
Cursor is VS Code with AI superpowers. I write code in it, and Claude helps me inline. The composer feature lets me describe entire features in plain English and watch them get built across multiple files. Game changer for someone who isn't a traditional developer.
n8n
This is my automation backbone. I use n8n to connect everything — Supabase, email, social APIs, webhooks. It's like Zapier but you own it, and it's way more powerful. I run it self-hosted and it handles all my background workflows.
Supabase
Database, auth, edge functions, storage — all in one. Supabase is what lets me ship full-stack apps without managing infrastructure. The free tier is generous enough to prototype anything.
The Philosophy
I don't chase every new tool. I pick a small set that works together, learn them deeply, and build with them until they break. That's the difference between tool tourism and actually shipping.