Operating stack

What I actually use

Models, runtimes, and tools, with the reason and a date. Rows marked not useful yet are still true. A change of mind becomes a new date, not a disappearing act.

Models

  • Model In use Aug 27, 2026

    Claude

    Implementation. The model that writes the actual change in the repo I sit in. I spend Anthropic on the work, not on talking about the work.

  • Model In use Aug 27, 2026

    GPT / Codex

    Review. A second pair of eyes that is not the writer. Catches shape and fog after the implementation lands, not instead of it.

  • Model In use Aug 27, 2026

    Grok

    Planning and reconnaissance. Fast enough to survey a codebase before anyone starts typing a patch.

  • Model In use Aug 27, 2026

    MiniMax

    Small mechanical tasks. Cheap where judgment is not the scarce input.

Runtimes

  • Runtime In use Aug 27, 2026

    SvelteKit

    Public surfaces. This site, Celstate, and Qyolyn ship on it because the UI stays small and the routes stay files.

  • Runtime In use Aug 27, 2026

    Convex

    Reactive backend when the product needs live data without standing up a pile of services. Used where the product is an app, not a page.

  • Runtime In use Aug 27, 2026

    Vercel

    Where the public sites actually live. Preview URLs are the review surface; production is a promotion, not a ceremony.

Tools

  • Tool In use Aug 27, 2026

    Cursor

    The editor I actually sit in. Agents dispatch from here; the files stay in git.

  • Tool Building Aug 23, 2026

    Qyolyn

    Voice-first gateway I am building for myself first. Speak, dispatch, hang up; tools do the work. Zero live users — Mom stopped on day one over running cost.

  • Tool Building Aug 19, 2026

    Seeker

    Search layer for agents. Fetch without judgment is a suitcase of clothes you never wear. Seeker is the middleman that decides what is worth taking.

  • Tool Running Aug 15, 2026

    diet-food

    The only personal operating tool that is defensibly running. Gourmet meals that stay inside the body-recomposition constraints, because depressing diet food is how the other tools die.

  • Tool Not useful yet Aug 15, 2026

    finances

    Household credit-card rewards and spend tooling. Never reached a useful state. Listed because incompleteness is the record, not a secret.

  • Tool Not useful yet Aug 15, 2026

    fitness-coach

    AI coach over Tonal / Renpho / DEXA. Never reached a useful state. Tonal sync was dead for months. Do not read this row as operational.

  • Tool Not useful yet Aug 15, 2026

    inbox-manager

    Gmail as an indexed archive instead of a junk drawer. Never reached a useful state. Same honesty as the other unfinished tools.

  • Tool Running Aug 1, 2026

    Celstate

    Live product for generating UI assets that do not look like every other app. Low priority now; still the one shipped SaaS with a public URL.