Toolbox¶
Terminal tools that make life bearable. Each one solves a specific problem — no fluff, no fashion frameworks.
Quick Hits¶
| Tool | What it does | Why bother |
|---|---|---|
| NeoVim | Modal text editor, Neovim-hardened | Vim motions without the 1990s baggage |
| tmux | Terminal multiplexer | Keep sessions alive when SSH drops |
| Kitty | GPU-accelerated terminal | Fast, configurable, image rendering in terminal |
| ZSH + Zinit | Shell + plugin manager | Sane defaults, async loading, no more .bashrc spaghetti |
| ASDF | Runtime version manager | One tool for Python, Node, Ruby — no more nvm/pyenv/rvm |
These tools are designed to work together:
- Kitty runs tmux sessions with NeoVim inside
- ZSH with Zinit loads completions for all the above
- ASDF manages runtimes across all projects
- tmux persists sessions across kitty window splits
Why this works: Each tool does one thing well. No IDE bloat, no lock-in. Drop any component and the rest still work.
Tips:
- Use tmux resurrect + tmux continuum to auto-save/restore sessions across reboots
- ASDF's legacy_version_file setting lets you keep existing .nvmrc / .ruby-version files
- Kitty's SSH integration (kitten ssh) beats OpenSSH for latency
Gotchas:
- More tools = more config drift. Keep dotfiles in version control
- ASDF shims can conflict with system-installed tools — check which before debugging
- tmux prefix key muscle memory is permanent once learned
Reference¶
- NeoVim —
toolbox/neovim.tool.md - tmux —
toolbox/tmux.tool.md - Kitty —
toolbox/kitty.tool.md - ZSH + Zinit —
toolbox/zsh.tool.md - ASDF —
toolbox/asdf.tool.md
Last Updated: 2026-07-08 | Vibe Check: Toolbox - Terminal tooling that doesn't get in your way.
Tags: toolbox, terminal, tools