Every field note in one place

Product guides, comparisons and setup notes. Browse the list or start with a desk setup.

News 579

• Is the Retro-Board Worth $149? It Depends What You're Buying
• Is the Whisper-Key Worth $87.90? Who It's For and Who It Isn't
• Is the KM16-Pad Worth $119? An Honest Look at Our Priciest Pad
• A Keyboard That Looks Good on Stream (and Types Fine Too)
• A Desk Mascot for Your Streaming Setup
• Showing Your Agent's Status on Stream Without an Overlay
• Arcade Buttons for a Live Coding Stream: Scene Changes as Content
• A Desk Setup That Looks Good on Camera Without Trying Hard
• One Macropad for OBS Scenes and Coding Sessions
• A Big Gift for Your Programmer Partner When 30 Dollars Feels Thin
• A Father's Day Gift for a Programmer Dad
• A Birthday Gift for a Programmer Under $50
• A Gift for the Vibe Coder in Your Life
• A Gift for Someone Learning to Code With AI
• A White Elephant Gift That Gets Fought Over at a Tech Office
• A Gift for the Programmer Who Has Everything
• Stocking Stuffers for Programmers Under 20 Dollars
• Gifts for Someone Who Talks to AI All Day
• A Secret Santa Gift for a Developer: $15 to $29, Sorted
• Swag Developers Actually Keep on Their Desks
• Gifts You Can Actually Ship to a Remote Team
• Hackathon Prize Ideas Developers Won't Quietly Re-Gift
• An Onboarding Gift for a New Developer's Desk
• Developer Team Gifts Under 30 Dollars a Head
• Bulk Gifts for an Engineering Team, Without Branded Junk
• One Push-to-Talk Device for Meetings and Dictation
• Running a Coding Agent While You're On Camera
• Watching Your Terminal Through Back-to-Back Calls
• An Agent Done-Signal You Can See From Across the Room
• A Big Physical Mute Button You Cannot Miss
• A Macropad for Video Call Shortcuts: Mute, Camera, Leave
• A Macropad You Can Carry to the Office Every Day
• A Desk Status Light That Tells Coworkers to Wait
• Are Arcade Buttons Too Loud for an Office? Probably.
• Is a Foot Pedal Weird at the Office? Yes, Slightly. Buy It Anyway?
• A Voice Input Device You Can Use in an Open-Plan Office
• Splitting Agent Work Between Hands, Feet and Voice
• Large Buttons When Fine Motor Control Is the Problem
• A Gift for a Developer With Wrist Pain (Tread Carefully)
• A Knob Instead of a Scroll Wheel When Your Wrist Complains
• Dictation for the Days When Typing Hurts
• Does a Foot Pedal Help With RSI? What We Will and Won't Claim
• Using a Macropad to Cut Keystrokes When You Have RSI
• A Voice Coding Setup When Carpal Tunnel Is Winning
• A Foot Pedal for Wrist Pain: What It Can and Can't Do
• A Budget Push-to-Talk Device for Talking to Your Agent
• A USB Foot Pedal Under 100 Dollars: Four Pedals for $85
• The Best Macropad Under $50 in Our Shop (There Is One)
• AI Agent Hardware Under 100 Dollars: What We'd Pick and Skip
• Agent Desk Upgrades Under $50 That Do Real Work
• Developer Desk Gadgets Under $25: The Honest Shortlist
• How Much Does an Agent Desk Setup Cost?
• How Many Keys Does a Macropad Actually Need?
• Do You Need a Mechanical Keyboard for AI Coding? No.
• An Agent Desk Setup That Fits a Small Desk
• A Bluetooth Macropad for a Laptop-Only Setup
• Should You Buy a Foot Pedal for Coding? An Honest Answer
• The Cheapest Physical Approve Button We Sell Is $29
• Which AI Agent Controller Should You Buy First?
• The Best First Macropad for Agent Work Is the Boring One
• What to Buy First for an AI Agent Desk (and What Can Wait)
• Leaving Agents Running Overnight: A Sober Setup
• One Key That Starts Your Whole Agent Desk
• Wiring a Desk Full of Hardware: Hubs, Ports and Cables
• A Desk Setup for Pairing with an AI Agent
• Checking on Your Agent from Across the Room
• A Dedicated Machine for Your Agents: Worth It?
• Two Computers, One Desk: Where Agent Inputs Go
• Does a Macropad Work Through a KVM Switch?
• Supervising Coding Agents at a Standing Desk
• A Laptop-Only Desk for Coding Agents
• A Dedicated Monitor for Agent Terminals
• A Desk Setup for Running Two Agents at Once
• Triggering a Local Notification from an SSH Session
• Turning the Terminal Bell into a Desk Light
• Wiring Codex CLI Notifications to a Desk Light
• Mapping Agent States to Red, Amber and Green
• Get Notified When Your Deploy Finishes
• A Desk Signal When a PR Needs Your Review
• A Notification When Any Long Command Finishes
• Get Notified the Moment Your Tests Finish
• One Status Light, Several Agents
• Polling vs Webhooks for Desk Notifications
• How to Wire Any Webhook to a Desk Light
• A Desk Light for GitLab Pipelines
• A Build Status Light for Jenkins
• A Desk Light for GitHub Actions
• Wiring Claude Code Hooks to a Desk Light
• Dictating into the Right tmux Pane
• Start Your Whole Agent Layout with tmuxinator
• Show Agent State in Your tmux Status Bar
• Running Claude Code on a Remote Server
• Git Worktrees for Parallel Claude Code Sessions
• One Key That Always Focuses Your Terminal
• Zellij for Coding Agents: A Session-per-Agent Setup
• An iTerm2 Hotkey Window for Your Coding Agent
• How to Run Multiple Claude Code Sessions at Once
• Sending Input to Another tmux Pane Safely
• Putting tmux Keybindings on a Macropad
• Running Claude Code in tmux: A Practical Setup
• One tmux Window per Agent: The Setup
• Dictating Prompts Into Codex CLI
• How to Set Up Voice Input for Cursor
• Choosing a Dictation Hotkey With Fewer Conflicts
• Building Push-to-Talk on macOS With Hammerspoon
• A Dedicated Hotkey Setup for Aqua Voice
• Setting Up VS Code Speech With a Hardware Key
• Push-to-Talk Dictation on Linux With nerd-dictation
• A Push-to-Talk Setup for whisper.cpp
• Putting Windows Voice Typing on One Real Key
• Putting macOS Dictation on One Real Key
• Using Talon Voice With a Foot Pedal
• A Dedicated Push-to-Talk Key for Superwhisper
• A Dedicated Push-to-Talk Key for Wispr Flow
• Key Remapping on Wayland: What Still Works
• F13 to F24: Spare Keys for Macropad Bindings
• Trigger macOS Shortcuts From a Macropad
• Bind a Macropad Key to a Shell Script on macOS
• PowerToys Keyboard Manager With a Macropad
• Remapping Keys With hidutil on macOS
• Setting Up a USB Foot Pedal on Linux
• How to Remap a Foot Pedal With AutoHotkey
• How to Remap a Foot Pedal With Karabiner-Elements
• Hyprland Keybinds for a Macropad
• Remapping a Macropad With xremap
• Remapping Macropad Keys With keyd on Linux
• Using VIA on Linux With udev Rules
• How to Remap a Macropad With VIA
• How to Remap a Macropad With AutoHotkey
• How to Remap a Macropad With Karabiner-Elements
• A Careful Macropad Setup for Cline
• A Macropad Setup for Zed's Agent Panel
• A Macropad Setup for Aider
• Setting Up a Macropad for Windsurf on Linux
• Setting Up a Macropad for Windsurf on Windows
• Setting Up a Macropad for Windsurf on macOS
• Setting Up a Macropad for GitHub Copilot on Linux
• Setting Up a Macropad for GitHub Copilot on Windows
• Setting Up a Macropad for GitHub Copilot on macOS
• Setting Up a Macropad for Gemini CLI on Linux
• Setting Up a Macropad for Gemini CLI on Windows
• Setting Up a Macropad for Gemini CLI on macOS
• Setting Up a Macropad for Cursor on Linux
• Setting Up a Macropad for Cursor on Windows
• Setting Up a Macropad for Cursor on macOS
• Setting Up a Macropad for Codex CLI on Linux
• Setting Up a Macropad for Codex CLI on Windows
• Setting Up a Macropad for Codex CLI on macOS
• Setting Up a Macropad for Claude Code on Linux
• Setting Up a Macropad for Claude Code on Windows
• Setting Up a Macropad for Claude Code on macOS
• Auto Approve vs a Button You Press
• Can Copilot Approve Pull Requests?
• Codex: Approve All vs Approving Each Step
• A Foot Switch for Copy and Paste
• Hardware Accessories for AI Coding Agents
• A Notification Light for When Your Build Finishes
• A USB Foot Pedal for Push to Talk
• A Programmable Foot Pedal for Mac
• How to Approve Agent Actions Without the Keyboard
• A Foot Pedal for Cursor: What to Bind and What to Expect
• A Desk Gadget That Shows Build Status
• What to Put on a Vibe Coding Desk
• Claude Code Remote Control: What It Means and What Works
• Keycap Charms for AI Tools
• What Does a Foot Pedal Do on a Keyboard?
• Approving Claude Code From Your Phone
• What Hardware Do You Need for Vibe Coding?
• A Microphone for Vibe Coding
• Putting the Claude Code Status Line on a Desk Lamp
• Claude Code Auto Approve: What It Costs You
• USB Hardware for Coding Agents on Linux
• Claude Code in the Terminal vs in VS Code
• Hardware Shortcuts for VS Code
• AI Coding Keyboard: What to Look For
• ChatGPT on a Stream Deck: Keys, Icons and Voice
• A Left-Hand Keyboard That Only Does Shortcuts
• How to Show Agent State Outside the Terminal
• Controlling Claude Code Without Touching the Keyboard
• How to Set Up Push to Talk for Dictation
• AI Hotkeys on macOS: Free Keys, Permissions and Dictation
• A Stream Deck for Claude Code: What Actually Goes on the Keys
• A Macropad for Terminal Commands
• When a Macropad Key Does Nothing
• The Best One-Handed Keyboard for a Developer
• USB Foot Switch: A Buyer's Guide
• The three shortcuts you press most with an agent
• Push to Talk for Claude Code: What It Takes
• Is a Stream Deck Worth It for Developers?
• Desk Toys for People Who Run Coding Agents
• Keyboard shortcuts for the ChatGPT desktop app
• Push to Talk for ChatGPT Voice: What Actually Works
• Is There a Vibe Coding Keyboard?
• AI Hotkeys on Windows: Free Combinations, Drivers and Voice Typing
• Dictation Not Working With Your Coding Agent
• Why Is My Foot Pedal Not Working?
• A Keyboard for Your Non-Mouse Hand
• Cursor IDE shortcut keys
• A Knob for Scrolling Long Agent Output
• Stream Deck Alternatives for Coding Agents
• Hands-Free Controls for Coding Agents: What Actually Works
• Push to Talk Key vs an Always On Mic
• GitHub Copilot keyboard shortcuts in VS Code
• Copilot Key Not Working on Your Keyboard?
• Which AI shortcut keys are worth binding to hardware
• Agent State on Your Desk: Idle, Thinking, Needs Input, Done
• Keyboard shortcuts for Claude Code
• A Push-to-Talk Key for Coding Agents
• An Agent Controller on a Budget
• What to Look for in an Agent Controller
• Agent Controller Alternatives You Can Buy Today
• A Micro Keyboard for ChatGPT and Codex
• An AI Agent Controller for Cursor: Keys Under the Hand That Is Not on the Mouse
• An AI Agent Controller for Claude Code: What to Buy and What to Bind
• A Micro Keyboard for Codex: Which Small Pad Actually Helps
• What Is an AI Agent Controller?
• Foot Pedals on a Mac: Do They Work as Keyboards?
• Voice Pad for GitHub Copilot: Setup Checks Before Buying
• Checking a Dictation Setup for GitHub Copilot Chat
• What Your Left Hand Should Be Doing in Windsurf
• Reviewing Cascade's Steps With Your Feet
• Voice Pad for Windsurf: What Actually Changes From a Handheld Mic
• Gift Ideas for Developers Who Run AI Agents
• Reducing Repetitive Strain From Accept-and-Reject Clicking
• Two Big Red Buttons for Approving What Cascade Just Did
• Building a Desk Setup for All-Day Agent Work
• One More Pedal: What Pedal Four Adds to the Windsurf Loop
• Can You Control Claude Code With a Foot Pedal?
• Do You Need Two Devices to Talk to Cascade and Click Through It?
• A Five-Key Shortcut Pad for GitHub Copilot
• Are Cheap Foot Pedals Any Good?
• Typing Prompts Into Gemini CLI on a Keyboard Worth Looking At
• What a Macropad Is Actually For
• Stop Alt-Tabbing to Check Your Terminal
• A Quieter Way to Prompt Your Coding Agent in an Open Office
• Sixteen Keys for Everything Gemini CLI Makes You Decide
• The Left-Hand Pad, Set Up for GitHub Copilot
• Does Gemini CLI Tell You When It's Done?
• Accepting GitHub Copilot Suggestions With Your Feet
• The Smallest Macropad That Still Runs a Gemini CLI Session
• Slapping Accept and Reject Instead of Typing Them, in Claude Code
• Do You Need a Retro Mechanical Keyboard to Run Windsurf?
• Left-Hand Macropad for Claude Code: What Actually Changes
• A Second Screen for the One Number Gemini CLI Makes You Check
• Sixteen Keys, One Cascade Plan
• Running Cascade Without Staring at the Tab
• A Quieter Way to Brief Gemini CLI
• Typing Prompts Into Cursor on a Retro Keyboard
• Mapping a Macropad for Code Review
• The Smallest Way to Add Macro Keys to Cursor

Field Notes 4

• Giving Your Left Hand a Real Job: 16 Keys and 3 Knobs
• Reviewing Agent Output With Your Feet
• Why You Keep Checking Whether the Agent Has Finished
• Dictating to a Coding Agent in an Open-Plan Office