WHAT IS ON MY DOCK IN 2026

I get asked roughly twice a month what is on my dock and which AI tools have actually earned a permanent spot in my workflow. This is the honest answer in May 2026, updated when something earns its place or loses it. Most tool lists online are affiliate-link driven; this is just what I use, with no commercial relationship to any of these companies unless explicitly noted.

Skip the categories that do not apply to your work. The tools that earn permanent spots are mostly the same across operators in similar roles, with personal preference shaping maybe ten percent of the choices. The shape of the stack matters more than the specific picks.

Claude Code

The single highest-leverage tool I added to my stack in 2025. Claude Code lives in the terminal, has full project context, can run shell commands, can read and write files, and integrates with MCP servers for everything from Supabase to Linear. Most engineering work now happens in Claude Code rather than directly in an editor. Anthropic ships it free; the underlying API costs apply.

Cursor

Best in-editor AI experience for working on a single file. Tab completion is uncannily good, inline edits are precise, side-by-side diffs catch the AI making subtle mistakes. I use Cursor when work is concentrated on one or two files; I switch to Claude Code when work spans the project. 20 USD per month, well worth it.

VS Code

Still on my dock as the no-AI fallback for quick file inspection, git mergetool, and the few cases where I want to read code without an AI offering edits. Free. Will probably be displaced by Cursor or Zed within twelve months but I have not gotten around to deleting it yet.

ChatGPT

I keep ChatGPT around mostly for image generation via DALL-E 3 (the rare case I am not using FAL flux-pro) and for second-opinion conversations when I want a different model than Claude on the same problem. The Plus subscription at 20 USD per month earns its place even though I use it less than Claude.

Kimi by Moonshot AI

Deep research mode (Kimi Researcher) is genuinely best-in-class. Competitive briefs, market memos, and editorial research that used to take a human analyst hours now take 12 to 15 minutes in Kimi. Free tier on the international web version is sufficient for individual use.

Minimax Agent

Full app prototype generation from a single prompt. The forty-second prototype-to-clickable-demo loop has changed how we run client pitches at Seahawk. Free at the consumer tier, paid API for integration.

Linear

Project management for engineering teams who have outgrown Trello but find Jira oppressive. Keyboard-shortcut-first, beautiful, fast. Both Seahawk teams and my personal projects run on Linear. Eight USD per user per month at the entry tier.

Notion

Internal documentation, client-facing docs, meeting notes, anything that is mostly text and needs to be shared. The page hierarchy and database views earn their place across the team. Ten USD per user per month for the team tier.

Obsidian

My personal note-taking. Local-first markdown files, no cloud, no editor lag, infinite link graph. Different mental model from Notion: Notion is for collaborative documents, Obsidian is for thinking. Free for personal use, paid sync if you want it.

Arc

Default browser since 2024. Workspaces feature is genuinely useful for keeping client work, agency work, and personal projects mentally separated. Free.

Warp

Terminal that finally feels like a 2026 product. AI-assisted command suggestions, modern keybindings, block-based history. The keyboard ergonomics are noticeably better than iTerm2. Free for individual use; paid team plans available.

jq, ripgrep, fd, fzf

The four CLI utilities that earn permanent shell aliases. jq for JSON manipulation, ripgrep for code search, fd as a faster find, fzf for fuzzy file pickers. All open-source, all install via Homebrew. Combined they save me roughly an hour a week and have for years.

Netlify

My default static-site host. This site runs on Netlify. Build minutes scale predictably, the deploy preview UX is excellent, and the platform handles redirects, headers, and edge functions cleanly. Free tier is sufficient for indie sites; paid plans start at 19 USD per user per month.

Vercel

When the project needs Next.js App Router with full RSC and ISR. HostList.io and Deluxe Astrology run on Vercel. The DX is genuinely best-in-class and the integration with Next.js is unrivalled. Cost lever to watch is ISR billing at scale (we have explicit merge limits on DA precisely because of this).

Supabase

Managed Postgres with Auth, Storage, and Realtime. Powers the data layer on this site and HostList.io. The fact that it is open-source and self-hostable is the safety net that lets me commit to it long-term. Free tier covers small projects; production-scale plans start at 25 USD per month.

Cloudflare

In front of every site I run, free tier. DNS, WAF, CDN, image optimisation. The free tier is genuinely production-grade for indie operators. Paid Workers for edge functions when needed.

FAL

AI image generation via flux-pro/v1.1-ultra and recraft/v3. Auto-blog hero pipeline runs through FAL daily on this site. Pay-as-you-go pricing; a typical hero costs roughly 4 cents.

Figma

Default design tool when humans are designing. I do less Figma work in 2026 than I did in 2023 because Minimax Agent and Claude Artifacts produce shippable prototypes faster, but Figma is still where serious brand work lives. Free for personal use; paid plans for collaboration.

Coolors.co

Colour palette generator I have used for years on every brand engagement. Type a base colour, get a tested palette, export to Figma or CSS variables. Free with paid pro for advanced features.

Sharp via the FAL image pipeline

Not a UI tool but a CLI dependency that has saved more bandwidth than any optimisation I have ever shipped. Sharp resizes and re-encodes FAL output to WebP at quality 82, cutting file sizes 90 percent without perceptual loss. Open-source, npm install.

Every quarter I scan the dock for things I have not opened in 30 days. Removed since May 2025:

Slack as my primary chat (replaced by Linear comments and direct iMessage with the team).

GitHub Copilot (displaced by Claude Code which does the same thing better and integrates with the rest of the toolchain).

Notion AI (was duplicative with Claude; the writing quality was worse and the cost compounded).

Three project management tools we tried after Linear (ClickUp, Asana, Height). None offered enough to displace Linear at the team size we have.

A handful of browser extensions that quietly rotted (one was even bought by a tracking company; deletion is the answer).

A working operator dock in 2026 is roughly 12 to 15 tools across the categories above, used deliberately, audited quarterly, and pruned ruthlessly when something stops earning its place. The list above is what is on mine today; yours will look different in maybe a third of the slots based on your specific work shape.

The mistake most operators make is collecting tools without pruning. Every tool you have not opened in 30 days is a small commitment of cognitive overhead. Delete it. Add something else only when it earns the slot.

I will update this guide quarterly. The reviewed-on date at the top tells you when last.