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Editor Setup

We don’t care which editor you use, but set it up properly before you start writing code.

We don’t mandate a specific editor, but most of the team uses one of these:

  • VS Code - Most popular, huge extension ecosystem
  • Zed - Fast, Rust-based, built-in AI features
  • Neovim - Terminal-based, highly customisable

VS Code Setup

Extensions you’ll want

Install these regardless of what languages you work with:

# Core
code --install-extension eamodio.gitlens
code --install-extension github.copilot
code --install-extension github.copilot-chat

# Formatting & Linting
code --install-extension biomejs.biome
code --install-extension charliermarsh.ruff
code --install-extension timonwong.shellcheck

# Infrastructure
code --install-extension hashicorp.terraform
code --install-extension redhat.vscode-yaml
code --install-extension ms-kubernetes-tools.vscode-kubernetes-tools

# Containers
code --install-extension ms-azuretools.vscode-docker

Language-Specific Extensions

Install based on the project you’re working on:

# TypeScript / JavaScript
code --install-extension astro-build.astro-vscode

# Python
code --install-extension ms-python.python
code --install-extension ms-python.vscode-pylance

# Rust
code --install-extension rust-lang.rust-analyzer

# Go
code --install-extension golang.Go

Add to your VS Code settings.json:

{
  "editor.formatOnSave": true,
  "editor.defaultFormatter": "biomejs.biome",
  "editor.rulers": [80, 120],
  "editor.bracketPairColorization.enabled": true,
  "editor.guides.bracketPairs": true,
  "editor.minimap.enabled": false,
  "editor.renderWhitespace": "trailing",
  "editor.stickyScroll.enabled": true,
  "files.trimTrailingWhitespace": true,
  "files.insertFinalNewline": true,
  "files.trimFinalNewlines": true,
  "terminal.integrated.fontFamily": "JetBrainsMono Nerd Font",
  "[python]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "charliermarsh.ruff"
  },
  "[terraform]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "hashicorp.terraform"
  }
}

Zed Setup

Zed works well out of the box. Key settings to adjust in ~/.config/zed/settings.json:

{
  "theme": "One Dark",
  "buffer_font_family": "JetBrains Mono",
  "buffer_font_size": 14,
  "format_on_save": "on",
  "tab_size": 2,
  "preferred_line_length": 120,
  "show_whitespaces": "trailing",
  "terminal": {
    "font_family": "JetBrains Mono",
    "font_size": 13
  }
}

Zed has built-in support for TypeScript, Python, Rust, and Go. Install language servers as needed through the extensions panel.

Fonts

We recommend Nerd Fonts for terminal and editor use. They include icons used by Starship and other tools:

brew install --cask font-jetbrains-mono-nerd-font
brew install --cask font-fira-code-nerd-font

Set your terminal and editor font to “JetBrainsMono Nerd Font” or “FiraCode Nerd Font”.

Next Steps

Continue to Security Practices to set up SSH keys, 2FA, and secrets management.