Setting Up a New Mac for Agentic AI Development
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Setting Up a New Mac for Agentic AI Development

Why Document This?

Every time I need to do a fresh install or get a new Mac, I install these essential apps/tools. With Agentic AI taking the software industry by storm, I have drastically updated my workflow.

Homebrew

Before anything else, install Homebrew. It’s the package manager macOS should have shipped with.

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Once installed, most CLI tools and even GUI apps can be installed with a single command.

HomebrewHomebrew

Claude Code

Claude Code is Anthropic’s agentic coding tool. Having an AI assistant that can read your codebase, run commands, and help you debug is a game changer. This is the main reason I set up my environment the way I do now.

curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

Claude CodeClaude Code

Under Evaluation

Tools I’m currently testing out:

Agentic AI Tools

  • Google Antigravity - Google’s VS Code fork for agentic coding. Only entertaining it since I got 6 months free with my new phone.
  • OpenCode - Open source agentic coding CLI. Curious about open source alternatives.
  • DeepAgents CLI - Another agentic AI tool I’m experimenting with but from my new favorite Agentic AI framework (langraph/langchain).
  • Raycast - Considering switching from Spotlight.
  • Warp - Trying out as a terminal replacement.
  • CodeRabbit - AI-powered code review tool, im still not convinced though.

CLI Tools

NVM (Node Version Manager)

NVM lets you switch between Node.js versions easily. Different projects need different versions, and nvm makes that painless.

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.1/install.sh | bash

UV

UV is a fast Python package manager written in Rust. It’s way faster than pip and handles virtual environments cleanly.

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Aerospace

Aerospace is a tiling window manager for macOS. If you’ve used i3 on Linux, this gives you similar functionality. I can’t go back to manually resizing windows.

brew install --cask aerospace

AerospaceAerospace

USQL

USQL is a universal CLI for databases. One tool to query PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, and more.

brew install usql

USQLUSQL

GitHub CLI

The GitHub CLI makes working with GitHub from the terminal way easier. Creating PRs, checking CI status, cloning repos.

brew install gh
gh auth login

Gitea CLI (tea)

The Gitea CLI is useful for interacting with Gitea instances from the terminal. Similar to GitHub CLI but for self-hosted Gitea.

brew install tea

Gitea CLIGitea CLI

IDEs and Editors

VS Code

VS Code is where I spend most of my time.

VS CodeVS Code

API Testing

Insomnia

Insomnia for API testing. It’s like Postman but feels cleaner to me.

InsomniaInsomnia

SSH Setup

Generate an SSH Key

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "{REPLACE_ME}"

Productivity Apps

Xmind

Xmind for mind mapping and brainstorming. When I’m planning a feature or trying to understand a complex system, visual mapping helps me think through it.

XmindXmind

Notesnook

Notesnook is my note-taking app of choice. It’s end-to-end encrypted and works across all my devices.

NotesnookNotesnook

Firefox

Firefox is my daily driver. I switched back to it once they added vertical tabs. I still use chrome everyonce in a while though.

FirefoxFirefox

Password Managers

I use two password managers for different purposes:

1Password

1Password for most day-to-day passwords. The browser extension and autofill work great.

1Password1Password

KeePassXC

KeePassXC for offline, air-gapped secrets. Some things I don’t want synced to the cloud. KeePassXC stores everything locally in an encrypted database.

KeePassXCKeePassXC

What’s Next

This list keeps evolving. The goal is to go from a fresh Mac to a fully productive dev environment in under an hour. I’m not quite there yet, but documenting everything is the first step toward a fully automated setup script.

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