My setup

PhpStorm has been my IDE of choice since 2014. For a long time I just used it with the default dark theme and configuration, however in the past couple of years I have customised it a little more.

I run the Material Theme UI plugin with the Atom One Dark theme. I keep most of the built-in toolbars hidden - though a couple stay - and I always work with tabs visible and the file browser open in the sidebar, unless I've split the workspace to see two files at once.

I came to AI fairly late. I'd been using ChatGPT since late 2024, but mostly for discussions and questions rather than writing code - I enjoy writing that part myself.

Agentic coding took me even longer to warm to; I didn't get on board until early 2026. ChatGPT still handles my day-to-day questions, while Claude Code and the Opus models have become part of my daily coding workflow - usually run straight from PhpStorm's built-in terminal, right alongside the code. I review everything by hand, but I've grown to trust it more and more - recently even on my own Coeliac Sanctuary codebase.

In PhpStorm I write in Fira Code at 16px with a 1.9 line height and ligatures switched on - easy on the eyes for long sessions. I'm far less fussy about the terminal, where I just leave Warp on its defaults.

Earlier this year I switched from iTerm2 to Warp, a modern, Rust-based terminal, and its polished take on things quickly won me over.

Underneath I've kept my familiar setup - Z Shell with Oh My Zsh, a handful of plugins and several aliases - and I even brought my old iTerm2 colour theme across, so it still feels like home.

For MySQL, SequelAce is still my tool of choice - clean, fast and exactly what I need.

For Postgres (mostly on Laravel Cloud) I switch between PhpStorm's built-in database tools and the occasional bit of TablePlus, though I've yet to find a Postgres client I like quite as much as SequelAce.

Laravel Herd is my go-to for local development - it's just so seamless. Drop a project into my code folder, head to project.test, and it's up and running!

And if I need to test calls to an API, Postman is my default tool.

Clean, consistent code matters a lot to me. I lean on Laravel Pint for formatting and PHPStan with Larastan for static analysis, all enforced through GitHub Actions on every push.

I also run my own PHPUnit Code Assertions package to keep architecture and naming conventions consistent right across a project.

I'll be honest - I'm a dd() / dump() kind of developer; nine times out of ten it's the quickest way to see what's going on. I've used Xdebug plenty and it's genuinely worth it for the trickier problems, but for day-to-day work a well-placed dump usually wins.

I don't customise macOS too heavily. I keep most apps in full screen and swipe between them, and the dock stays hidden - only appearing, with the smallest possible icons, when I push my cursor to the bottom of the screen.

Earlier this year I swapped Alfred for Raycast, bound to the same Option + Space shortcut so the muscle memory carried straight over. It's second nature now for launching apps and general navigation.

Nothing fancy here - I just use the built-in macOS screenshot tool, usually launched straight from Raycast.

1Password handles all my credentials these days. I came to it fairly late - only really converting in the last year or two after using it at work - but now I wouldn't be without it.

I use Mimestream - a fast, native, Gmail-focused client I switched to from Spark back in late 2022.

Firefox is my day-to-day browser, with Chrome reserved for dev work.

I'm perfectly comfortable with Git on the command line, but for day-to-day work I prefer a GUI - GitKraken is my pick.

For new projects, Laravel Cloud is now my default - it's fully managed and scales without me having to think about servers.

My longer-standing projects still run on DigitalOcean droplets - Coeliac Sanctuary among them - where a predictable, fixed monthly cost suits them well.

I'd rather not fiddle with server configs, so on a VPS I lean on Laravel Forge for provisioning, setup and zero-downtime deployments.

On Laravel Cloud there's even less to do - deployment is baked in, so I can just push and let the platform handle the rest.

I manage the email addresses for my personal sites with Google Workspace. Anything automated - transactional emails and campaigns - goes out through Amazon SES, with campaign management and logging handled by the fantastic Mailcoach from Spatie.

Whenever I need file storage, I reach for Amazon S3 - it just works. It handles everything from image uploads to assets across my projects, Coeliac Sanctuary included.

Outside of work I like to keep things simple - just me on the sofa, or in bed after the little one's gone down, with my MacBook.

It's a 2020 16" MacBook Pro - 2.3GHz 8-core i9, 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD, and it handles everything I throw at it for personal work.

I've been an Android fan since 2012, and these days I carry a Google Pixel 9 Pro XL.

I've worn a Fitbit since 2017, though these days it's the original Google Pixel Watch - a free gift when I pre-ordered the Pixel 7 nearly four years ago. It still pairs nicely with Fitbit, and even though it needs charging every day, it hasn't left my wrist since.

My main guitar is an Epiphone Les Paul - I'd love a Gibson one day, but that's a little out of budget for now!

Alongside it I keep a cheaper Les Paul copy tuned to E♭ for songs that need it, and a Squier bass for when I fancy something different.

Everything runs through an Orange Micro Crush 3 - tiny, but punchy, and more than enough for playing at home.

My effects all go through a Boss ME-90, with each of my favourite tones saved and ready to switch between so I can play along to whatever I fancy.

For the piano side of things I've got an entry-level Yamaha keyboard - nothing fancy, but it does the job while I learn.