Dev Environment on Backend Engineering Strategy Tools

Obsidian

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Obsidian is a local-first Markdown note-taking and knowledge management tool. Notes are plain .md files in a folder on disk — your vault. No proprietary format, no cloud lock-in, no account required. Open the folder in any text editor and the files are right there.

The core feature is bidirectional linking: [[note name]] creates a link between notes, and Obsidian builds a graph of all connections. This makes it useful for capturing ideas that relate to each other — architecture decisions, research, running notes on a project — without forcing a rigid folder hierarchy upfront.

Plugins extend the core significantly. Community plugins cover daily notes, task management, canvas (spatial note layout), Dataview (query your vault like a database), Git sync, and more.

For a dev workflow, a common setup is a vault in a Git repository — plain Markdown means diffs are readable, history is useful, and syncing across machines is standard Git push/pull.

Resources

Terminal Multiplexers

Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This note explores the choice between Zellij and tmux for terminal multiplexing.

Why use a terminal multiplexer?

Terminal multiplexers allow you to run multiple terminal sessions within a single window, detach from them, and reattach later. This is incredibly useful for:

Persistent sessions (e.g., long-running processes continue even if your SSH connection drops).
Organizing multiple tasks (tabs, panes).
Remote development.

Tmux

https://github.com/tmux/tmux

Introduction: tmux is a long-standing and extremely powerful terminal multiplexer. It’s highly configurable and has a vast user base.

Pros:

Mature and stable.
Very flexible and customizable.
Widely adopted, lots of resources and plugins.

Cons:

Configuration can be complex and requires significant effort to set up to personal taste.
Default keybindings can be arcane.
Can feel a bit dated in terms of user experience compared to newer alternatives.

Zellij

https://zellij.dev/

Introduction: Zellij is a newer, more modern terminal workspace and multiplexer, designed with a focus on good defaults and a more intuitive user experience.

Pros:

Modern design and user interface.
Sensible defaults that often require less configuration out of the box.
Built-in layout management.
Rust-based, often praised for performance and safety.

Cons:

Newer, so the ecosystem of plugins and community support is smaller than tmux.
May not have the sheer depth of customization options available in tmux (though this is also a pro for simplicity).

Initial Thoughts / Direction

Given the preference for good defaults and minimal tinkering, Zellij is the stronger contender — modern take on multiplexing without the configuration overhead of tmux.

Current status

Not using either. The setup cost hasn’t been worth it yet — plain terminal, one thing per tab works fine for now.

The main argument for multiplexers is session persistence: if your connection drops or terminal closes, the session keeps running server-side. That matters most when SSHing into remote servers and running things interactively. That pattern is largely avoided here in favour of CI/CD pipelines — if something needs to run remotely, it runs in a pipeline, not in a terminal session.

Working locally with a modern terminal (iTerm2, Wezterm, etc.) that has native tabs and split panes, the marginal gain is genuinely small day-to-day. Rational laziness — the cost-benefit only flips when remote work or session persistence becomes a real part of the workflow.

Will revisit if that assumption changes.

Terminal Setup Notes (macOS): Kitty → Ghostty Exploration

Wed, 06 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been using kitty as my main terminal for a while. It’s fast, stable, and very capable — but I’ve realized I don’t actually enjoy tweaking terminal configs or maintaining a highly customized setup.

So I’m exploring simpler alternatives with good defaults.

Current direction: Ghostty

Trying out: Ghostty
https://ghostty.org/

Why:

Clean macOS-native feel
GPU-accelerated and fast
Tabs + splits built in
Designed for sane defaults (low configuration overhead)
Keyboard-first workflow works well out of the box
My only config change: Remapped tab switching shortcut (default ][ to alt-[/] for easier access on a Swedish keyboard layout).

Goal:
Less time configuring terminal → more time working.

Why the switch

Simplified setup: I found myself spending less time tweaking and more time working.
Perceived responsiveness: Both are fast, but Ghostty felt marginally snappier in heavy-usage scenarios.
Clean design: The aesthetic and functional minimalism resonated more with my current preferences.

What I’m moving away from (for now)

kitty

https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/

What I liked:

Very fast, GPU-accelerated rendering
Highly configurable via a single kitty.conf
Excellent font rendering — ligatures, custom fonts
Extensible with Kitten modules (tabs, scrollback, multiplexing)
Stable and mature

Why I’m moving on:

Too much customization surface area
I don’t actually enjoy tuning it

Other tools I’ve looked at

Warp

https://warp.dev/

Warp feels like a “terminal reinvented” (more IDE-like, block-based UI, AI features). It’s interesting, but feels a bit too opinionated and visually heavy for my taste.

Other Terminal Emulators (briefly noted)

While Kitty and Ghostty are modern GPU-accelerated terminals, it’s worth acknowledging other terminal emulators that have been foundational or offer different philosophies.

https://www.x.org/releases/X11R7.6/doc/man/man1/xterm.1.xhtml

The classic X Window System terminal emulator. While not as feature-rich or graphically advanced as modern options, xterm (and its derivatives like urxvt, st, etc.) represent the minimalist, highly customizable end of the spectrum. They often prioritize resource efficiency and adherence to traditional Unix principles. Good for when you need something simple and rock-solid, but usually requires more effort to get a pleasant default experience.

Current philosophy

I’m optimizing for:

minimal clutter
fast keyboard workflow
good defaults (not deep config systems)
fewer moving parts

Current setup direction

Terminal: Ghostty
Tabs: built-in (no extra tooling yet)
Multiplexing: not using tmux/Zellij for now
Keeping things intentionally simple

Open question

If Ghostty tabs feel too minimal in real use, I may revisit:

Zellij (for structured sessions)
tmux (unlikely unless necessary)

For now, keeping it simple on purpose.