Software

My entire development environment lives in my dotfiles repository - 76 Ansible roles that configure everything from terminal emulators to cloud CLIs. Rather than list every tool, let me walk you through how I actually work.

The Terminal is Home

I spend 95% of my time in the terminal. My setup is designed for speed and muscle memory - the same keybinds work whether I’m on my Ubuntu workstation or MacBook.

Starting a Session

When I sit down to work, I open Ghostty - a GPU-accelerated terminal that’s fast enough to keep up with my typing. From there, I hit <prefix>-o to launch sesh - a session manager that ties everything together.

The sesh + tmux Workflow

Sesh is the command center for my tmux workflow. <prefix>-o opens an fzf popup where I can:

• ^a - List all sessions
• ^t - Filter to tmux sessions only
• ^x - Browse zoxide’s frecent directories (create new session on select)
• ^g - Jump to config directories
• ^f - fd-based directory search for anywhere else
• ^d - Kill a session without leaving the picker

This means I never manually create sessions or cd around. I just hit <prefix>-o, fuzzy find where I want to be, and sesh either attaches to an existing session or creates one in that directory.

Sessions persist through reboots thanks to tmux-resurrect and tmux-continuum - I never lose my window layouts or working directories.

For navigation within tmux:

• Ctrl+hjkl - Navigate panes (vim-tmux-navigator makes this seamless with neovim splits)
• <prefix>-S - Synchronize panes (type in all panes at once)

The Status Bar

My tmux status bar shows:

• Current session name (highlights red when prefix is active)
• Current directory + git branch
• Zoom indicator when a pane is maximized
• Claude status - shows whether Claude Code is working, done, or idle
• Online/offline indicator

The Editor: Neovim

I live in Neovim with a heavily customized config. My setup includes:

• Telescope for fuzzy finding files, grep, and LSP symbols
• LSP configured for Go, Terraform, YAML, Bash, and more
• Treesitter for syntax highlighting and text objects
• vim-tmux-navigator for seamless pane/split navigation

I don’t use a file tree - Telescope is faster. My most-used keybinds:

• <leader>fs - File Search (uses git files when available)
• <leader>gs - Grep Search (live ripgrep across project)
• <leader>b - Switch Buffers
• <leader>fr - Files Recent
• / - Fuzzy search in current buffer

Window Management

I use AwesomeWM on Linux and Hammerspoon on macOS - but not as traditional tiling window managers. Instead, I built a cell-based system where I predefine screen regions and assign apps to specific cells.

The concept: An 80x40 virtual grid (resolution-independent) with named cells. Each app is assigned a cell and a summon key.

Summon: Press Hyper+letter and the app instantly appears in its designated cell. If it’s already running, it focuses and repositions. If it’s not running, it launches directly into position. No hunting through windows, no Alt+Tab cycling - just summon what you need, where you need it.

4K Workspace layout:

I can switch between layouts (4K Workspace, Standard Dev, Fullscreen) and all apps reposition to their new cells. No dragging, no resizing - just instant, predictable window placement.

The Shell Stack

My shell is zsh with a customized Powerlevel10k prompt. The real power comes from custom functions I’ve written that wrap complex workflows into single commands.

Git functions (fzf-powered with previews):

• gs - Quick git status
• gss - Enhanced status showing branch, PR status, worktrees, stash count
• gtags - Interactive tag browser
• glog - Commit browser with full diff preview
• gacp <msg> - Add all → commit (signed) → push in one command

Kubernetes aliases:

• kgp - kubectl get pods (args pass through: kgp -A, kgp -n foo)
• kgn - kubectl get nodes
• kc - kubectl config use-context (with tab completion)
• k9s - My go-to for cluster interaction

Remote editing:

• nisshfs <server> - Mount via SSHFS → open in neovim → auto-unmount on exit

Development Tools

For day-to-day development, my most-used tools are:

• gh - GitHub CLI for PRs, issues, and Actions
• podman - Container runtime (no Docker, no GUIs)

Infrastructure Tools

Working in DevOps, I interact with infrastructure constantly:

• Terraform + Terragrunt - Infrastructure as Code
• Helm - Kubernetes package management
• kubectl - Kubernetes CLI
• AWS/Azure CLIs - Cloud provider interaction

AI Tools

Claude Code is integrated into my terminal workflow with a custom configuration that includes:

• Custom hooks that update my tmux status bar (working/done/idle)
• Slash commands for common workflows
• Skills for specialized tasks
• Memory files for project context

The tmux integration means I always know at a glance whether Claude is processing something.

The Philosophy

My setup optimizes for:

1. Speed - Every tool is chosen for performance
2. Consistency - Same experience on any machine
3. Keyboard-first - Mouse is a last resort
4. Reproducibility - dotfiles rebuilds everything

Everything is documented and version controlled. If my laptop dies tomorrow, I can have an identical environment running in under an hour.

Want the actual configs? Check out my dotfiles repo - it’s all there.

Homelab

My homelab is a production-grade infrastructure running in a 42U enclosed server rack. Everything is deployed via GitOps - no manual configuration, no snowflakes.

Hardware

Architecture

The heart of my homelab is a 3-node Talos Kubernetes cluster running on Proxmox VE. I chose Talos for its immutable, API-driven design - no SSH, no package managers, just declarative configuration.

Stack Overview:

• Hypervisor: Proxmox VE
• Kubernetes: Talos Linux
• GitOps: ArgoCD deploys everything from git
• Ingress: Traefik + Cloudflare Tunnels (HA with 2 replicas)
• Networking: MetalLB for load balancing, Pi-hole for DNS
• Storage: CloudNativePG operator, local-path provisioner, NFS

What’s Running

I run 25+ production services including:

• Immich - Self-hosted Google Photos replacement
• Homepage/Dashy - Dashboard for all services
• Self-hosted GitHub Actions runners - CI/CD on my own hardware
• Full observability stack - Prometheus, Grafana, AlertManager

Infrastructure as Code

The entire homelab is defined in my home.io repository:

• Terraform provisions Proxmox VMs
• Ansible bootstraps the base OS
• ArgoCD deploys all Kubernetes workloads

If my rack catches fire, I can rebuild the entire infrastructure from git.

Want to see the actual configs? Everything is public at github.com/TechDufus/home.io.