How I Set Up My MacBook for AI Engineering in 2026
A minimal, opinionated setup for building applied AI: Homebrew, Cursor, Claude API, Docker, Node, Python, pyenv — and the defaults I changed.
Outline — full post coming soon
Outline (publishing soon):
— The 12 tools I install on day one and why.
— My terminal setup: zsh, starship, the dotfiles I keep across machines.
— Python: pyenv + uv, not pip + venv. The reasons.
— Node: pnpm, corepack, why I stopped using nvm aliases.
— Cursor + Claude Code: what each is good at, and how I keep them from stepping on each other.
— Anthropic API key handling: 1Password, direnv, and never .env in a public repo.
— Docker only when I need it. The defaults that bite you on Apple Silicon.
— What I removed compared to last year's setup.