What are the 5 tools you simply couldn't do your work without?

My 5, building dev infra:

Claude Code — completely changed how I write and review code. The feedback loop with an agent that has real context is genuinely different from a chatbot.

Linear — forces you to actually prioritize instead of just accumulating tickets.

Warp — made the terminal feel less like 1985.

Posthog — seeing where users actually go vs. where you thought they'd go is humbling.

A dedicated inbox per project — routing signal by context (CI alerts, customers, agents, ops) keeps your head clear. A single noisy inbox is death by a thousand notifications.

Curious if anyone else's list has shifted significantly in the last year because of AI — not just adding AI tools, but replacing things that no longer feel necessary?

Great question! Here are my 5 essentials:

1. Notion – my second brain for notes, projects, and planning

2. 2. Claude / ChatGPT – brainstorming, drafting, and thinking through complex problems

3. 3. VS Code – can't write a single line of code without it

4. 4. Slack – async communication keeps my team in sync

5. 5. Loom – nothing beats a quick video when text just doesn't cut it

Curious how many people overlap on Claude/ChatGPT — it seems like it's becoming the universal #1!

My five are a mix of development, infrastructure, security, and automation:

1. Claude Code: for exploring large codebases, reviewing architecture, debugging difficult issues, and automating repetitive engineering work.

2. Cloudflare: for DNS, application security, traffic protection, caching, and managing services at the edge.

3. VS Code: still my main workspace for writing, searching, debugging, and maintaining code across different projects.

4. Zapier: for connecting business tools and automating repetitive workflows without building every integration from scratch.

5. Tailscale: for securely connecting servers, devices, and internal services without exposing them directly to the public internet.

I've benefited a lot from discovering tools through discussions like this, so I'm looking forward to finding a few more worth adding to my workflow.

Mine :-

1. Chat /Claude

2. Canva

3. Google Analytics

4. X

5. Reddit

The 5 tools I couldn't do my work without:

1. PunamIDE – I built it, but it's also my daily driver. I use it to code, debug, record development sessions, manage AI workflows, and test new features on itself.

2. ChatGpt/DeepSeek – My primary AI coding partner. It's helped me generate, review, and refactor thousands of lines of code while working with limited hardware and budget.

3. GitHub – Version control, backups, releases, issue tracking, and collaboration. Every serious software project I build lives here.

4. SQLite – The unsung hero. Lightweight, fast, and reliable. It powers indexing, local storage, settings, and project data across my apps.

5. Tauri – Lets me build native desktop applications with web technologies while keeping performance and memory usage low.

Bonus: My aging i3 laptop. It has no right to still be carrying this much workload, but here we are. 😄

My top 5:

1. ChatGPT – research, brainstorming, writing, coding, and problem-solving.

2. Cursor – has completely changed how I build and prototype ideas.

3. Figma – still the fastest way to think visually.

4. Slack – where work actually happens.

5. Notion – my knowledge base, task manager, and idea dump all in one.

Funny how AI now takes up 2 out of my 5 essential tools. A few years ago that list would've looked completely different.

Such a great topic — I’ve already found so many useful things in the comments.

My five:

1. ChatGPT — brainstorming, research, writing, and structuring ideas

2. Google Docs — where nearly all my drafts and thinking live

3. Music — I genuinely work worse without it

4. Slack — team communication and keeping everything moving

5. Airtable — organising projects, content, and all the moving pieces. I really love it

My 5:

1. ChatGPT / Claude – research, brainstorming, and helping me think through ideas

2. Qadence – keeping track of projects, tasks, and everything happening across them

3. Google Docs – writing and collaborating on ideas

4. Slack / WhatsApp – communication and quick discussions

5. Mail – surprisingly still one of my most opened apps

I use plenty of other tools depending on the project, but these are the ones I'd struggle to work without on a daily basis.

My 5:

1. ChatGPT

2. Codex

3. Canva

4. Email - Outlook, gmail

5. Google Calendar

Mine as a solo founder building in the productivity space:

1. Figma — for sketching anything that needs to be shown, not explained

2. Notion — planning, notes, thinking out loud

3. Claude — first thinking partner before talking to anyone else

4. TestFlight / Google Play Console — for getting real feedback before I’m sure it’s ready

5. A plain task list — nothing fancy, just everything in one place so my brain can stop holding it

The pattern I notice: none of these are powerful. They’re just calm. The tools that actually stuck are the ones that don’t demand attention when I’m not using them.