/setup gear · shell · llms · why — last updated 2026-05-10

everything in my box,
with a short note on why I picked it.

machine
thinkpad x1 c11
os
arch + sway
llm spend · may
$18.42 / $50 cap
tokens · may
412,114
01 [hardware] the box I carry everywhere
thinkpad x1 carbon · gen 11
11 cores, 32 gb, 2 tb. nothing exotic. boring is the point.
buy ↗
lg 27" ultrafine · usb-c
4k, single cable. external monitor that does not get in the way.
buy ↗
keychron k3 · low-profile
I have opinions on switches. this is the smallest set I had after them.
buy ↗
sony wh-1000xm5
open offices and coffee shops. no rgb on it, ever.
buy ↗
02 [os + shell] boring chosen on purpose
arch · btrfs · sway
I rebuild the system every 6 months from a yaml. nothing precious lives on the laptop.
zsh · starship · atuin
history is my single most-used tool. atuin makes it queryable.
tmux + zellij (trying)
two panes, never more. trying zellij again.
fish for one-offs
I have one machine on fish. it is fine. zsh wins on portability.
03 [devops toolchain] why each one, in one line
docker still the local dev unit-of-work. nothing has replaced it for me. → note
kubernetes (k3s) k3s on the homelab. real k8s when work demands it. → note
helm I tolerate it. nothing better for shipping a small chart. → note
terraform the IaC I reach for first. opentofu when the org cares. → note
github actions where my CI lives. cheap, ubiquitous, simple enough. → note
flux gitops on the homelab. I learn more from breaks than from happy paths. → note
prom + loki + grafana observability triad. nothing exciting, everything legible. → note
04 [llms + ai] live usage from the api
claude · haiku-4
$11.20
rag · chat · agents
claude · sonnet-4.6
$5.80
reviews · refactors
openai · text-embed-3
$1.42
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