Recommended Development Tools

We recommend these tools for a consistent, cross-platform developer workflow.

Platform & Shell

  • Nushell — Required recommendation. Default interactive and scripting shell on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Structured pipelines; display owned by the shell at the end of the pipe. See Why We Recommend Nushell and setup.

  • Windows Terminal — Modern terminal host on Windows; add a profile that launches nu.

  • Warp — Optional modern terminal with strong UX (where you choose it).

  • sudo for Windows — Elevate when the OS requires it.

  • PowerShell 7 — Use only when an OS feature, installer, or legacy script demands it. Not the Dev-Centr default shell.

Package Management

  • UniGetUI — GUI over winget and other managers (Windows).

  • pnpm — Preferred Node package manager in this ecosystem.

  • uv — Preferred Python environment and package tool.

Editors & Agents

  • Cursor — Primary AI-assisted IDE in this workspace.

  • VS Code — Acceptable when Cursor is unavailable.

Fonts (monospace)

Strong recommendation for terminals, editors, and DevCentr code panels:

  • Cascadia Mono — Default. No ligatures; best for tables/grids (including Nushell table output). Prefer Mono over Cascadia Code.

  • JetBrains Mono — Supported alternate in DevCentr Appearance settings.

DevCentr lets you pick between those two (Appearance in the top bar). Install the font on the OS so editors and Windows Terminal can use it too.

Version Control

  • Git — Required.

  • GitHub CLI (gh) — GitHub operations from the terminal (prefer running under Nushell).

Documentation

  • AsciiDoc + Antora for Dev-Centr published docs (see org publishing guides).

Design & Brand Motion

No single format wins. Choose by job (see Brand and UI Motion Formats for the full matrix):

  • Animated SVG — Default for portable brand motion (org profiles, docs, marketing without a JS player). Prefer a self-contained file that honors prefers-reduced-motion. Best agentic/git fit.

  • Lottie — Use when motion is complex baked timeline work (often After Effects). JSON is text but cumbersome to edit; needs a player. Acceptable in AE pipelines (including CentrMark’s Lottie support); not the automatic default for simple marks.

  • Rive — Option for interactive / theme-driven UI motion (state machines, inputs) when a runtime is justified. Runtimes MIT; editor proprietary; .riv is binary (weak agentic authoring). Prefer lite packages when possible; lazy-load. Do not treat as an open de facto standard.

Watch-only (not endorsed defaults): text-first motion DSLs / CSS-shaped scene formats aimed at LLM workflows — see the explanation page. Popkorn is noted there as a potential future solution; outreach: ayarse/popkorn#7.

New machine? Install Nushell first (how-to), then your terminal host, then package managers.