Setup

This is my actual setup - not aspirational, not a list of tools I installed once. Everything here is open right now or runs every time I open a terminal.

Machine

OS: Windows 11 with WSL2 (Ubuntu) for all development work. The Windows host handles the GUI layer - browser, Figma, Postman. Everything else runs inside WSL2 where it belongs.

Why not Linux?

Mostly familiarity and the fact that WSL2 genuinely closed the gap. Docker, Node, Git, Bash - it all works.

The real reason is simpler: games. Linux is great, but when Valorant refuses to run, that’s a dealbreaker. Proton and Wine are impressive, but I don’t want to troubleshoot just to play. I’m not dual-booting just to get tilted in ranked.

Terminal

Shell aliases I actually use

# Git
alias gs="git status"
alias ga="git add ."
alias gc="git commit -m"
alias gp="git push"
alias gl="git log --oneline --graph --decorate"
alias gco="git checkout"

# Package manager
alias pi="pnpm install"
alias pd="pnpm dev"
alias pb="pnpm build"
alias pt="pnpm test"

# Navigation
alias ..="cd .."
alias ...="cd ../.."
alias dev="cd ~/projects"

# Docker
alias dcu="docker compose up -d"
alias dcd="docker compose down"
alias dcl="docker compose logs -f"

Editor

VS Code - I've tried Neovim. I respect it. I came back.

The extensions I'd reinstall first if I wiped my machine:

settings.json (the parts that matter)

{
  "editor.formatOnSave": true,
  "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode",
  "editor.tabSize": 2,
  "editor.fontSize": 14,
  "editor.fontFamily": "JetBrains Mono, monospace",
  "editor.minimap.enabled": false,
  "workbench.colorTheme": "One Dark Pro"
}

Package Manager

pnpm - always. Faster installs, hard links that save disk space across projects, and a strict node_modules structure that makes phantom dependencies fail loudly instead of silently. Once you stop getting burned by packages that work locally but fail in CI because of a hoisted dependency, you stop using npm.

# Set pnpm as the default for new projects
corepack enable
corepack prepare pnpm@latest --activate

For monorepos, pnpm workspaces with Turborepo is my default - see BuildElevate for the full setup.

Git Config

[user]
  name = Vijay Singh
  email = your@email.com

[core]
  editor = code --wait
  autocrlf = input

[alias]
  st = status
  co = checkout
  br = branch
  lg = log --oneline --graph --decorate --all
  undo = reset HEAD~1 --mixed
  amend = commit --amend --no-edit

[pull]
  rebase = true

[push]
  autoSetupRemote = true

[init]
  defaultBranch = main

pull.rebase = true keeps history linear without thinking about it. push.autoSetupRemote = true means I never type --set-upstream again.

Fonts

JetBrains Mono in the editor and terminal. Ligatures on. The => and !== ligatures aren't just aesthetic - they reduce visual parsing time for operators you're reading a hundred times a day.

Browser

Arc as the daily driver. The sidebar, spaces, and command bar replaced how I think about tab management. For dev work, the dev tools are the same Chromium engine underneath - nothing lost there.

Extensions that affect how I work:

• React Developer Tools - can't debug component state without it
• Dark Reader - dark mode on every site, because my eyes are tired

Other Tools