Dev tools worth bookmarking

gm builders, happy Moday. If your day started as Git spaghetti, this issue is your fork.

Today is pure dev-tool goodness: an AI junior dev that spins up PRs while you sip coffee, code-tuned LLMs that whip out tests and reviews on demand, and one-click open-source hosting that nukes infrastructure headaches.

P.S. Want your launch to be featured in this newsletter? Drop us a line with your pitch at editorial@producthunt.co 🫶

Codex by ChatGPT hooks into your repo and spits out branches on command. Ask for a feature, bug fix, test suite, or quick code explainer; it works in isolation and pushes a clean PR—no extra terminal, no local setup.

🔥 Our Take: Handy for the grunt work and typo hunts that drain half a day. Treat Codex like a tireless junior dev: let it draft, then read the diff before you hit merge.

Windsurf’s Wave 9 update ships three models—SWE-1, SWE-1-lite, and SWE-1-mini—trained for pure software work. Plug them into the Windsurf IDE and they’ll write reviews, generate tests, and draft design docs. Lite and mini are free if you just want to kick the tyres.

🔥 Our Take: Most AI coders still feel like interns faking expertise. SWE-1 promises fewer hallucinated APIs and more useful code you can actually run. If the free mini model holds up, hobby projects just got cheaper and weekend hacks might ship on time.

Appwrite Sites is the platform’s new hosting arm. Point it at a static or server-rendered repo, click deploy, hook up your domain, and you’re live, with SSL, previews, and templates included. Think Vercel vibes, minus the closed source.

🔥 Our Take: Vercel’s great until the bill stings. If you’re already using Appwrite for auth and databases, keeping the front end under the same roof just makes sense. The real test will be traffic spikes; let’s see if “open-source Vercel” can stay upright on launch day.

Talshyn Nova tossed out a nostalgia check: “Which ‘just-for-fun’ products ended up running real businesses?”

Answers rolled in fast. Discord graduated from gamer banter to remote-team HQ. Drones flew out of backyards and into farming, film, and security. LEGO’s 3-D bricks sneak into engineering classes; Reddit moved from meme scroll to product-research goldmine; Zapier glues entire orgs together after starting as a hobby connector. Someone even dropped the Zoom origin story—built to save a long-distance relationship, now powers half of remote work.

Same story each time: toy today, essential tomorrow. Worth a skim if you’re side-eyeing your “silly” project and wondering what it might grow into.