My dev setup

Sep 12, 2026 - ⧖ 2.0 min

I'm a software developer and I love Linux and the terminal. Here's how I set things up

Overview

Homebrew to manage global applications
Just to run common commands
Nushell as the user shell
Mise to manage project-specific applications and commands
Git + LazyGit for project management
Neovim + Lazyvim to edit text (sometimes Helix instead)
Midnight Commander for file management
Gum to make scripting easier
Zellij for terminal multiplexing

Setup

To do this you need user access (not root) on any Linux system. It also works in containers. I recommend Debian Stable but this should work for any distro.

Install requirements curl and git
Install Homebrew
Create a file in your home folder called .Brewfile
Add the following to this .Brewfile:

brew "mise"
brew "just"
brew "nu"
brew "gum"
brew "nvim"
brew "helix"
brew "mc"
brew "lazygit"
brew "zellij"
brew "fd"
brew "ripgrep"

Run brew bundle --global
Update .bashrc to support brew and mise

Optionally, to use nushell:

Update config nu to support brew and mise
Remember to run nu when you want Nushell

How does this actually work?

Let's say I want to start a new Java project.

cd ~/Projects
mise exec maven -- mvn archetype:generate
# follow maven's instructions to make "my-java-project"
cd my-java-project
touch mise.toml
mise use java
mise use maven

Now I have the folder my-java-project, and when I enter it I automatically get Java and Maven added to my dev environment. Once I leave the folder, no more Java or Maven. This means I can work on different Java projects without juggling Java versions.

mise exec is like npx in that I can run tools without installing them. This lets me set up pretty much anything without adding it to my global dev environment. I can do the above with uv or poetry for a Python project.

What about IDE support?

If I'm using Neovim with LazyVim I just have to use it's built in tool Mason to install whatever LSP servers I want. For Java that would be jdtls. For Python that would be basedpython + ruff + ty

If I'm using Helix I can install these LSP servers through Homebrew and Helix just picks them up.

More info

Over time I will make posts going into detail on why I do things this way, and why I picked this solution over others. Until then, this is a nice start.