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Developer Reference February 2026

Tech Guides

Cheat sheets & reference docs styled with design systems

52 guides · 44 styles · Self-contained HTML

Tier 1 — Core Tools
Reference
Retro Terminal

tmux

Split your terminal into sessions, windows, and panes. Run persistent processes that survive disconnects, script complex layouts, and manage remote workflows.

Reference
Dark Folio

Claude Code

Anthropic's AI coding agent for the terminal. Natural language commands, multi-file editing, MCP integrations, persistent memory, and autonomous subagents.

Reference
Glassmorphism

GitHub Copilot CLI

GitHub's AI-powered terminal assistant. Natural language to shell commands, slash-driven workflows, multi-model support, and MCP tool integrations.

Reference
Holographic

OpenAI Codex CLI

OpenAI's open-source terminal coding agent. Sandboxed execution, multi-provider model support, full-auto mode, and customizable profiles.

Reference
Letterpress

Git

The distributed version control system behind modern software development. Branching strategies, rebasing workflows, interactive staging, hooks, and collaboration patterns.

Reference
Cyberpunk

Docker

Package applications into portable, isolated containers. Build images with Dockerfiles, orchestrate services with Compose, and manage networking and volumes.

Reference
Blueprint

Kubernetes

Orchestrate containers at scale across clusters. Deploy workloads, expose services, manage secrets and configs, and master kubectl for day-to-day operations.

Reference
Circuit Board

Vim / Neovim

The modal text editor that rewards mastery. Lightning-fast cursor motions, composable editing commands, powerful macros, LSP integration, and Lua-based configuration.

Reference
Library Card Catalog

Emacs

The extensible, self-documenting editor — keybindings, Org mode, Elisp, Magit, and the multiplexer dream.

Guide
RTS HUD

Terminal Emulators

Command center comparison of Kitty, WezTerm, Alacritty, Windows Terminal, iTerm2, Ghostty, xterm.js, and classic terminals. Features, performance, configuration, and choosing your battle station.

Guide
Dieselpunk

Termux

Android terminal emulator — Linux forged in mobile steel. Package management, dev environments, PTY allocation, and the tools that finally work on Android.

Reference
Honeycomb

MCP

The Model Context Protocol for connecting AI to external tools, data, and capabilities. Covers tools, resources, prompts, transports, building servers and clients, and real-world patterns.

Guide
Neumorphism

AI CLI Developer Setup

Complete beginner’s guide from Windows to WSL2, Claude Code, and Codex CLI. Line endings, shell setup, CLI power tools, and everything that trips up new developers.

Guide
Sketch

AI Context Management

Manage context as a finite resource for AI coding agents. CLAUDE.md hierarchies, modular architecture, multi-tool configs, progressive disclosure, anti-patterns, and memory systems.

Tier 2 — Essential Toolkit
Reference
Film Grain

FFmpeg

The Swiss Army knife of audio & video. Convert formats, encode with H.264/H.265/VP9/AV1, build filtergraphs, stream HLS/DASH, accelerate with GPU, and inspect media with ffprobe.

Reference
Noir

SSH

Encrypted remote access to any machine. Generate and manage keys, tunnel through firewalls, proxy via jump hosts, multiplex connections, and harden your config.

Reference
DOS/BIOS

curl & wget

Command-line HTTP powerhouses for working with APIs and the web. Send requests, handle auth, submit forms, download files, and automate web interactions.

Reference
Cassette Futurism

htmx

High-power tools for HTML. AJAX requests from attributes, swap strategies, triggers, SSE, WebSockets, boosting, OOB swaps, and server integration patterns.

Reference
Memphis

npm / yarn / pnpm

Node.js package management from install to publish. Dependency resolution, lock files, workspace monorepos, lifecycle scripts, and security auditing.

Language
Vaporwave

TypeScript / JavaScript

The language of the web, fully typed. Type system, async patterns, modules (ESM/CJS), generics, DOM & Node.js APIs, decorators, testing with Vitest, and common gotchas that trip up every developer.

Language
Swiss International

Python & pip

The Python developer's complete toolkit. Virtual environments, package management with pip and uv, project config with pyproject.toml, debugging, and profiling.

Language
Ukiyo-e

Ruby & Rails

Ruby programming from core syntax to Rails 8 essentials. Object model, blocks, metaprogramming, gems, testing with RSpec, and the Hotwire stack for modern web apps.

Language
Celtic

Go

The language built for simplicity and concurrency. Goroutines, channels, interfaces, generics, error handling, modules, testing, the standard library, and the Go ecosystem.

Language
Copper Verdigris

Rust

Ownership, borrowing, traits, async/await, cargo, and the Rust ecosystem.

Language
Steampunk

Zig

No hidden control flow, no hidden allocations. Comptime generics, explicit allocators, C interop, cross-compilation, and a build system written in Zig itself.

Language
De Stijl

HTML & CSS

Modern markup and styling from semantic structure to scroll-driven animations. Flexbox, Grid, container queries, :has(), custom properties, view transitions, and performance.

Language
Coffee

Java

The enterprise workhorse from fundamentals to modern Java 21+. OOP, collections, streams, concurrency, virtual threads, Spring Boot, Maven/Gradle, testing, and the full ecosystem.

Language
Aurora Borealis

Elixir

Functional, concurrent, and fault-tolerant. Pattern matching, pipes, OTP supervisors, Phoenix, LiveView, Ecto, ExUnit testing, and deploying releases to production.

Language
Cherry Blossom

Gleam

A friendly language for building type-safe systems on Erlang and JavaScript. Custom types, pattern matching, the pipe operator, Result-based error handling, OTP actors, and the Hex package ecosystem.

Reference
Frutiger Aero

VS Code

Microsoft's extensible code editor used by millions. Multi-cursor editing, integrated debugging, built-in terminal, remote development, and a vast extension ecosystem.

Reference
Op Art

Regular Expressions

The universal pattern-matching language for text. Character classes, quantifiers, capture groups, lookaround assertions, and flavor differences across languages.

Reference
Retro Futurism

Bash Scripting

Write robust shell scripts for automation and system tasks. Variables, control flow, functions, I/O redirection, signal traps, and text processing with sed and awk.

Reference
Windows 3.1

PowerShell

The object-oriented shell from Windows PowerShell 5.1 to cross-platform pwsh 7+. Cmdlets, pipelines, modules, remoting, error handling, and a Bash-to-PowerShell rosetta stone.

Reference
Kinetic Flux

jq

A lightweight command-line JSON processor. Filter, slice, map, and transform structured data using a concise, pipe-friendly query language.

Guide
Knolling

API Design & REST

Designing precise, well-organized HTTP interfaces. REST constraints, URL design, HTTP methods, status codes, authentication, pagination, error handling, and versioning best practices.

Guide
De Stijl

Choosing a Programming Language

A meta-level language selection guide for the AI agentic coding era. Decision matrices, language profiles, project-type flowcharts, and the five axes that matter when AI writes most of the code.

Reference
Clockwork Horologist

Makefiles

The build automation workhorse. Targets, prerequisites, recipes, variables, pattern rules, functions, conditionals, and battle-tested patterns for C, Go, and Docker projects.

Reference
Glitch Art

Godot Engine

The open-source game engine, fully decoded. GDScript, scenes & nodes, physics, 2D/3D development, shaders, animation, audio, UI, export targets, plus AI integration with MCP servers and local LLMs.

Tier 3 — Infrastructure & Ops
Reference
Industrial

nginx

High-performance web server, reverse proxy, and load balancer. Virtual hosts, SSL/TLS termination, upstream configuration, caching strategies, and request routing.

Reference
Architectural

PostgreSQL & MySQL

Relational database essentials for both major engines. Query writing, join strategies, index design, JSON support, window functions, CTEs, and administration.

Reference
Fire & Heat

Redis

The in-memory data engine. Data structures, key expiration, Pub/Sub, transactions, Lua scripting, persistence, caching patterns, streams, consumer groups, Cluster, and Sentinel.

Reference
Cassette Futurism

SQLite

The embedded database engine. CLI commands, type affinity, PRAGMAs, WAL mode, FTS5, JSON functions, window functions, CTEs, and embedding patterns for Python, Node, Go, and Rust.

Reference
Data Visualization

DuckDB

The fast in-process analytical database. SQL extensions, Parquet/CSV/JSON import, window functions, QUALIFY, WASM browser usage, Python & Node.js bindings, httpfs remote data, and comparison with SQLite.

Reference
Glitch Art

Vitest

The modern testing framework for Vite. Test/describe/expect API, vi.mock and vi.fn, snapshots, coverage, workspace mode, browser mode, fixtures, and migration from Jest.

Reference
Neon Brutal

Bun

The all-in-one JavaScript runtime. Installation, bun run/install/test/build, Bun.serve() HTTP server, SQLite bindings, file I/O, macros, Node.js compatibility, and bunx.

Reference
Brutalist Web

systemd

Linux's init system and service manager. Write unit files, create timers, query logs with journalctl, manage targets, configure cgroups, and enable socket activation.

Reference
Solarpunk

Ansible

Agentless IT automation that manages infrastructure as code. Inventory, playbooks, roles, Jinja2 templates, Vault secrets, and idempotent fleet management.

Guide
Architectural

Software Architecture

An opinionated conceptual guide to modern software architecture. Patterns, scale tiers, modular design, frontend and backend landscapes, data strategy, infrastructure, security, and AI context engineering.

Guide
Chinese Porcelain

Cloud Platforms

AWS, Azure, and GCP compared side-by-side. Compute, storage, databases, networking, security, AI/ML, IaC, observability, pricing models, architecture patterns, and a decision framework.

Guide
Italian Futurism

CI/CD Pipelines

Automate builds, tests, and deployments at velocity. GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins pipelines, Docker in CI, deployment strategies, secrets management, and pipeline optimization.

Reference
Outrun

GitHub Actions

The complete GitHub Actions reference. Workflow YAML syntax, triggers, runners, matrix builds, reusable workflows, caching, artifacts, environment protection rules, marketplace actions, and debugging.

Reference
Constructivism

Terraform

Infrastructure as Code with HashiCorp’s declarative language. HCL fundamentals, providers, state management, modules, workspaces, advanced patterns, testing, and production best practices.

Guide
Air Traffic Control

Networking Fundamentals

The OSI/TCP-IP stack, IP addressing & subnetting, DNS resolution, core protocols, routing & switching, firewalls, VPNs, load balancing, and a complete troubleshooting toolkit.

Guide
Atlas Console

Monitoring & Observability

The three pillars of observability: metrics, logs, and traces. Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, alerting, SLOs, error budgets, incident response, and the complete tool ecosystem.

Guide
Newspaper

Security Fundamentals

The essential security desk reference. CIA triad, authentication, cryptography, OWASP Top 10, network defense, cloud security, incident response, and compliance frameworks for government IT.

Guide
Marble & Gold

Engineering Excellence

The gold standard of software development. Code quality, testing disciplines, architecture, operational excellence, DORA metrics, engineering culture, and the practices that separate good teams from great ones.

Guide
Vienna Secession

Operational Excellence

The art of running reliable systems. SRE principles, observability, incident management, postmortems, on-call, release engineering, disaster recovery, automation, SLOs, and building an ops culture.

Guide
Stained Glass

PKI & Certificates

X.509 structure, certificate authorities, TLS handshake, mTLS, certificate formats, Let's Encrypt & ACME, enterprise & government PKI, HSMs, code signing, and troubleshooting.

Guide
Byzantine

Active Directory & IAM

The complete identity governance reference. AD architecture, LDAP, Kerberos, SAML, OAuth, RBAC, Group Policy, Azure AD / Entra ID, SSO federation, security hardening, and troubleshooting.

Guide
Art Deco

Linux Distributions

A comprehensive comparison of Linux distros. Debian, Red Hat, Arch, and SUSE families, package managers, release models, desktop environments, immutable distros, WSL2, and a decision framework.

Guide
Civic

Security & Compliance

The definitive compliance reference for government enterprise IT. NIST CSF 2.0, 800-53 control families, RMF process, FedRAMP authorization, FISMA, STIGs, CIS Benchmarks, ATO lifecycle, vulnerability management, and DevSecOps compliance.

Guide
Federal Night

Rationalization & Decommissioning

The complete IT rationalization playbook. Portfolio discovery, the TIME model, Gartner 6Rs, TCO analysis, dependency mapping, decommissioning runbooks, data retention compliance, stakeholder management, and continuous portfolio governance.

Reference
Neon Brutal

WebSockets

Full-duplex real-time communication. The protocol handshake, browser API, server implementations in Node/Python/Go, reconnection strategies, binary data, authentication patterns, scaling with Redis pub/sub, and SSE comparison.

Reference
Deep Sea Bioluminescence

GraphQL

The complete GraphQL reference. Schema definition, resolvers, queries, mutations, subscriptions, authentication patterns, cursor-based pagination, client libraries (Apollo, urql), introspection, federation, and tooling.