Forging the Truth on Jamal Hansen

The Shell Switch

Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Shell Switch: Setting Your Native Tongue

The Veil

When you open a terminal in VS Code, is it PowerShell blue? That default shell was chosen for you, not by you. The AI that’s helping you code assumes Bash. If your terminal doesn’t match, you’re not building. You’re translating.

The Dross

The AI speaks Bash. Every path it gives you, every command it suggests, every script it writes – Bash. When your terminal is PowerShell, every / becomes a \ you have to fix by hand. You’re spending mental energy on translation instead of on the problem.

The VS Code Terminal Shortcut

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Veil

Every time you move your hand to the mouse to find a terminal, you’re losing the race against your own AI. I was clicking through the View menu for months before I found this. VS Code has a terminal built in, and you can summon it without touching the mouse.

The Dross

Vibe-coding is high-frequency work. You’re jumping between the code the AI gave you and the terminal where you need to run it. If that jump takes three clicks, you’ll stop doing it. You’ll start “guessing” if the code works instead of “knowing.”

The Anvil You are Missing

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The terminal window is a powerful tool that lets you quickly verify what LLMs tell you that they have done