This year I went with a 13-inch M5 MacBook Air (16GB RAM, 512GB storage) because I wanted something light for coffee shop days instead of dragging my M1 Pro 16-inch around. I did a full fresh start (no Migration Assistant) so the setup is clean and you can see exactly what I install and tweak from day one. First I fix the stuff that drives me crazy: clean up the Dock, swap the wallpaper, keep Dock size around default with magnification, and disable natural scrolling because scrolling down to go up is just not for me. From there it’s the real dev stack: Chrome as my main browser, then Homebrew so everything else installs smoothly through the terminal. I install Git immediately for repo work and keeping things clean on GitHub. For IDEs, Xcode is my main one for indie iOS apps (and it now has an AI agent you can connect to tools you already pay for), plus Android Studio—my nightmare and best friend that somehow always wants more RAM. I also show the tools that make my workflow actually fast: Postman for API testing with workspaces, Claude Code as my AI agent (Opus and Sonnet are my go-tos), Notion for everything from scripts to app roadmaps, Raycast for shortcuts and clipboard history, WisprFlow for voice-to-prompt speed, OneMenu for window management + system stats, and DaVinci Resolve + Figma for video and design.