{"slug": "the-dev-tools-i-actually-use-as-a-solo-rust-tauri-developer-in-2026", "title": "The Dev Tools I Actually Use as a Solo Rust + Tauri Developer in 2026", "summary": "A solo developer shipping 7 Mac apps uses VS Code with rust-analyzer, a three-tier AI stack of local Ollama autocomplete, Gemini for quick lookups, and Claude for complex Rust bugs, plus iTerm2 and a strict \"commit before AI\" rule. The developer runs all tests on an 8-year-old MacBook Air and rejects any tool that cannot justify its overhead, excluding Figma, CI/CD, and project management software.", "body_md": "All tests run on an 8-year-old MacBook Air. All results from shipping 7 Mac apps as a solo developer. No sponsored opinion.\n\nNot a listicle of everything possible. Just what I actually open every day.\n\n**rust-analyzer**: non-negotiable. Inline type hints, error detection, jump to definition. Rust without rust-analyzer is painful.\n\n**Continue**: local LLM autocomplete via Ollama. Handles boilerplate and repetitive patterns without API calls.\n\n**Even Better TOML**: Cargo.toml syntax and validation. Small but useful.\n\n**Tauri**: official Tauri extension with command palette integration.\n\n**Ollama + qwen2.5-coder:1.5b**: autocomplete. Runs locally. Never leaves the machine.\n\n**Gemini**: quick questions, syntax lookups, anything where speed matters more than depth. Free tier covers daily use.\n\n**Claude**: hard Rust bugs, architecture decisions, anything where being wrong is expensive. Free tier for targeted use.\n\nDefault macOS Terminal works. iTerm2's split panes are useful when running `npm run tauri dev`\n\nalongside a shell for ADB commands.\n\nCommit before handing off to AI tools. This saved me twice when AI tools made silent regressions — I could diff against the last commit and see exactly what changed.\n\nThe rule: never let AI touch code that isn't committed.\n\nTauri apps have a WebView. `Cmd+Option+I`\n\nopens DevTools in dev mode. Frontend bugs debugged exactly like a web app.\n\nBackend: `RUST_LOG=debug npm run tauri dev`\n\nshows Rust log output in the terminal.\n\nI'm not a designer. For UI, I use Tailwind CSS utility classes and reference existing Mac app conventions. I don't use Figma.\n\nFor app icons — my weakest point — I iterate on simple concepts and accept \"good enough.\" The icon isn't the product.\n\nSolo dev means every tool has to justify its overhead. Most don't.\n\n**TL;DR:** My daily stack as a solo Rust + Tauri dev: VS Code with rust-analyzer, three-tier AI (Ollama locally, Gemini for quick lookups, Claude for hard bugs), iTerm2, and Git with a strict \"commit before AI\" rule. No Figma, no CI/CD, no project management tool — if it can't justify its overhead, it's out.\n\nIf this was useful, a ❤️ helps more than you'd think — thanks!\n\n[HiyokoAutoSync](https://hiyokomtp.lemonsqueezy.com/checkout/buy/20c922f1-ca45-4f77-aeb2-04e34aad2fb4) | X → [@hiyoyok](https://x.com/hiyoyok)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-dev-tools-i-actually-use-as-a-solo-rust-tauri-developer-in-2026", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/hiyoyok/the-dev-tools-i-actually-use-as-a-solo-rust-tauri-developer-in-2026-1j3j", "published_at": "2026-06-12 03:05:44+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-12 03:42:05.974511+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-tools", "large-language-models", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["rust-analyzer", "Continue", "Ollama", "qwen2.5-coder:1.5b", "Gemini", "Claude", "Tauri", "iTerm2"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-dev-tools-i-actually-use-as-a-solo-rust-tauri-developer-in-2026", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-dev-tools-i-actually-use-as-a-solo-rust-tauri-developer-in-2026.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-dev-tools-i-actually-use-as-a-solo-rust-tauri-developer-in-2026.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-dev-tools-i-actually-use-as-a-solo-rust-tauri-developer-in-2026.jsonld"}}